Included in the May Newsletter with contributions by:
Stephanie Veiga, CMP - the main author
Cathi Lundgren, CAE, CMP | CEO - Cathi's Contemplation Corner
AI image generation did not disappoint!
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Random May Holidays Recreating Human Connections Cathi’s Contemplation Corner Take a Walk |
Random May Holidays
- May the 4th – Star Wars Day – Pew, Pew! Get your Lightsabers ready kids!
- May 5th – Cinco de Mayo – Tequila, STAT!
- May 12th – Mother’s Day – Oh Mother, how I love thee.
- May 14th – International Chihuahua Appreciation Day – Cute little concentrated demon dogs!
- May 17th – National Mushroom Hunting Day – Shhhh be wewwy quiet, I’m hunting mushrooms.
- May 21st – World Meditation Day –If you don’t meditate; try to meditate for 10 seconds, if you do meditate, try an OM meditation.
- May 25th – National Wine Day – Got wine?
- May 27th – Memorial Day – Take a moment to remember those who served and sacrificed.
- May 30th – International Hug Your Cat Day – Sure, if you can catch the cat, give it a try!
Recreating Human Connections
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This article will not include any scientific statistics about how many people feel alone. Instead, this is about what I learned when I went from lonely to reconnected.
For as long as I can remember, I have been an extroverted person. I had always enjoyed talking with people and was fascinated by their stories. The good, the bad, and the ugly. With an outgoing personality, I easily attracted introverts, like a moth to a flame. I didn’t even have to put out candy, they just showed up, maybe because they felt safe around me. As the years went by, my human connection light started to dim. As my career progressed, life-actions took place, friends separated, things got quieter, life got, well lifey. In my mid-forties, life felt like the song Eleanor Rigby by the Beetles, and that was not going to do it for me. What did I want though? I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to feel alone anymore. So, I went on a quest, to find myself and others. Here is what I learned along the way. Admitted that a change was needed. Once I realized that a bus full of people was not going to pull up to my house ready to have a parade for Stephanie, I had to admit that I would need to take some action on my part to initiate a change. Of course, I felt like the Universe was pulling me out my front door by the leg as I tried to hang onto the threshold of the front door screaming like a banshee! But after I let go, things got a little easier, but I think there are still scratch marks on the door. Bravery came next. Well, once the Universe pulled me from my humble abode, I stood at a crossing point. I could have gone back into the house and just let things remain the same. Or I could take that leap of faith. Trusted that what was about to happen was meant to be, but it took bravery to take those first few steps. I joined groups of like-minded people, took fun classes long forgotten, exposed myself to people (No! Not like that! I didn’t want to get arrested for goodness sakes!) |
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Action! Now I was in the thick of it. I started to gather friends because of the different events I was attending. I plucked people up like beautiful wildflowers in a meadow. Each one hand selected to make my tribe bouquet. People would ask me to do activities and my immediate answer was “NO!”, thankfully this was only in my head, but my mouth verbalized “Yes”. Even if I didn’t want to, I had to, action was in play, and a body in motion stays in motion.
Repetition. Just like the directions on the back of a shampoo bottle; rinse and repeat. Now that the actions were set in motion, the “Yes’s” got easier. Meeting new people, doing new things, and joining new groups got so much easier. Conversations just flowed, doing things with people was a joy, and adding new beings to my tribe was delightful. The more I repeated the process, new neuropathways were forged in my mind. Digging the grooves deeper into the brain, it wasn’t even painful! It was good.
Acceptance was the final stage of my human reconnection expansion. I had to accept that just like the first pancake is always going to suck 100%, no matter how hard I try, that if I want human connection, I need to work on it. Always. Be my authentic self, always.
In closing, I’m going to quote something I heard this week from one of my favorite FB reel folks. “Don’t forget, people want you to show up as you are”.
Cathi’s Contemplation Corner
Article written by Cathi Lundgren, CAE, CMP | CEO
Let’s Talk About Session Length
I’m certain you’ve heard all the talk recently in planning circles about the challenges of capturing the ever-shrinking attention span of attendees. Studies show that attention spans have decreased and our love affair with our devices contribute to us all wanting that frequent dopamine hit.
The word on the street is our sessions are too long and we should switch our formats to 20 to 30-minute sessions. I hear this over and over and, specifically, from one leading “meetings guru.” (Tell me again why so many of the top meeting industry speakers are male. No offense intended male readers, but in a profession dominated by females I’m always surprised by the number of men that headline or are considered gurus of our industry. But that’s a topic for another time.)
I think it’s time to have a discussion on session length and attention spans. The thing is, that discussion will have to include how we change the systems surrounding why many of us do meetings. As association planners you are likely holding meetings to deliver continuing education towards licensure or a certification. If you’re doing national sales meetings, you are likely offering sessions for new product trainings and updated business strategies. CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW WE CAN HAVE A MEANINGFUL OFFERING IN A 20 to 30 MINUTE TIME PERIOD??? (Phew! I feel better now!)
I get it—people sometimes get bored in meetings. Honestly, I feel that way every time I sit through a meeting of the local nonprofit board I serve on. Not every moment is captivating, but necessary work is being done. I’ve attended meeting industry conferences where the content or the speaker is less than stellar but sometimes it takes at least 20 minutes to make that determination. With most sessions, you have the speaker intro, then the speaker delivers some niceties or ways to relate to the audience, and BOOM! you’re 15 minutes in. (Then it takes me another 10 minutes to formulate a plan to exit the room in the least obtrusive way. Then another five minutes to execute the plan.)
I am trying to put my head around the idea of a 20-to-30-minute session, but I don’t see it as being a valuable offering. Do I want to drive over bridges designed by engineers who attended a 20-minute session of continuing education to learn the latest in bridge safety?? Do I want my esthetician to take a 20-minute session to determine how to treat my enlarged pores?? Can a drug rep really learn the pharmacology of the latest drug in 20-minute sessions??
Is the amount of time really the issue? People sit through blockbuster movies that last close to three hours. I’ve attended concerts that were longer than three hours and I still wasn’t ready to leave at the end.
The idea of a 20-30-session may sound like a solution to recreating meetings but in reality, it doesn’t work.
As planners, we are charged with creating engaging experiences and time plays an important role. Content and presentation style trump length in every situation I can think of (expect maybe an elevator speech).
How are you addressing session length and attention span issues at your meetings? What have you tried that has worked? What have you tried that hasn’t worked? Let’s have a discussion that includes more than just setting a stopwatch.
Weigh in on our Facebook page. I want to hear your thoughts.
I’m certain you’ve heard all the talk recently in planning circles about the challenges of capturing the ever-shrinking attention span of attendees. Studies show that attention spans have decreased and our love affair with our devices contribute to us all wanting that frequent dopamine hit.
The word on the street is our sessions are too long and we should switch our formats to 20 to 30-minute sessions. I hear this over and over and, specifically, from one leading “meetings guru.” (Tell me again why so many of the top meeting industry speakers are male. No offense intended male readers, but in a profession dominated by females I’m always surprised by the number of men that headline or are considered gurus of our industry. But that’s a topic for another time.)
I think it’s time to have a discussion on session length and attention spans. The thing is, that discussion will have to include how we change the systems surrounding why many of us do meetings. As association planners you are likely holding meetings to deliver continuing education towards licensure or a certification. If you’re doing national sales meetings, you are likely offering sessions for new product trainings and updated business strategies. CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW WE CAN HAVE A MEANINGFUL OFFERING IN A 20 to 30 MINUTE TIME PERIOD??? (Phew! I feel better now!)
I get it—people sometimes get bored in meetings. Honestly, I feel that way every time I sit through a meeting of the local nonprofit board I serve on. Not every moment is captivating, but necessary work is being done. I’ve attended meeting industry conferences where the content or the speaker is less than stellar but sometimes it takes at least 20 minutes to make that determination. With most sessions, you have the speaker intro, then the speaker delivers some niceties or ways to relate to the audience, and BOOM! you’re 15 minutes in. (Then it takes me another 10 minutes to formulate a plan to exit the room in the least obtrusive way. Then another five minutes to execute the plan.)
I am trying to put my head around the idea of a 20-to-30-minute session, but I don’t see it as being a valuable offering. Do I want to drive over bridges designed by engineers who attended a 20-minute session of continuing education to learn the latest in bridge safety?? Do I want my esthetician to take a 20-minute session to determine how to treat my enlarged pores?? Can a drug rep really learn the pharmacology of the latest drug in 20-minute sessions??
Is the amount of time really the issue? People sit through blockbuster movies that last close to three hours. I’ve attended concerts that were longer than three hours and I still wasn’t ready to leave at the end.
The idea of a 20-30-session may sound like a solution to recreating meetings but in reality, it doesn’t work.
As planners, we are charged with creating engaging experiences and time plays an important role. Content and presentation style trump length in every situation I can think of (expect maybe an elevator speech).
How are you addressing session length and attention span issues at your meetings? What have you tried that has worked? What have you tried that hasn’t worked? Let’s have a discussion that includes more than just setting a stopwatch.
Weigh in on our Facebook page. I want to hear your thoughts.
Take a Walk!
Last week was an interesting mix of emotions. Just coming back from an emotional high from a 5-day seminar focused on opening my heart and stretching into new possibilities, I returned to the “real world” which consisted of dealing with life.
True to form, life has a sense of humor. Just like an “OK” wine, the kind with a cute animal on the label, and very much like the writer of the SPIN Newsletter, funny and sarcastic, with just a hint of darkness and an essence of goofiness.
Immersing myself back into the world of “doing things” I got to attend a networking event on Monday. This was very nice, and I met several new people, I enjoy expanding my network! Tuesday was a standard day, a little work, some technology issues that made me want to set the laptop ablaze, went to dinner with a friend, met up with people I haven’t seen in a while. Then Wednesday hit. The technology issues apparently hadn’t had enough of me yet, and after the tech-issues held a meeting, they decided Wednesday was a good day to knock me off my rocker!
Wrong passwords and missed helpdesk connections, verification codes that went out to the dark side of the Universe, computer audio issues for no apparent reason, several computer reboots, and more. I kept pushing the buttons that I knew would work and they weren’t working. Stupid buttons! At one point, I was texting a friend about my tales of woe and there was a suggestion to “call a techie friend”, to which I replied “I AM the techie friend”! There were no further texts after this one.
Then came a logical and sane thought which did not originate from my brain. It said “Why don’t you just go for a walk”? To which I mocked “neeeeee What don’t you just go for a walk”? Said in the nastiest of mocking voices, including mumbling of incoherent words. But I went for the walk.
If there was a nasty meter displayed over my head at the start of the walk, it would be bursting out the top of the temperature gauge with red hot sauce. However, as I walked, things changed. Living in an olde time New England town there are lots of old cemeteries, and I’m lucky to have one less than ½ mile from the house. I started on my path there.
First, I came across a yard with dandelions, and one had turned into that white puffy shape, the shape right before dandelion seeds spread to the neighbor's lawn. My thought was this:
True to form, life has a sense of humor. Just like an “OK” wine, the kind with a cute animal on the label, and very much like the writer of the SPIN Newsletter, funny and sarcastic, with just a hint of darkness and an essence of goofiness.
Immersing myself back into the world of “doing things” I got to attend a networking event on Monday. This was very nice, and I met several new people, I enjoy expanding my network! Tuesday was a standard day, a little work, some technology issues that made me want to set the laptop ablaze, went to dinner with a friend, met up with people I haven’t seen in a while. Then Wednesday hit. The technology issues apparently hadn’t had enough of me yet, and after the tech-issues held a meeting, they decided Wednesday was a good day to knock me off my rocker!
Wrong passwords and missed helpdesk connections, verification codes that went out to the dark side of the Universe, computer audio issues for no apparent reason, several computer reboots, and more. I kept pushing the buttons that I knew would work and they weren’t working. Stupid buttons! At one point, I was texting a friend about my tales of woe and there was a suggestion to “call a techie friend”, to which I replied “I AM the techie friend”! There were no further texts after this one.
Then came a logical and sane thought which did not originate from my brain. It said “Why don’t you just go for a walk”? To which I mocked “neeeeee What don’t you just go for a walk”? Said in the nastiest of mocking voices, including mumbling of incoherent words. But I went for the walk.
If there was a nasty meter displayed over my head at the start of the walk, it would be bursting out the top of the temperature gauge with red hot sauce. However, as I walked, things changed. Living in an olde time New England town there are lots of old cemeteries, and I’m lucky to have one less than ½ mile from the house. I started on my path there.
First, I came across a yard with dandelions, and one had turned into that white puffy shape, the shape right before dandelion seeds spread to the neighbor's lawn. My thought was this:
Next, I happened upon a dropped pencil on the ground. I actually felt kind of bad for the pencil because its lead was broken off, and it just looked sad and abandoned. I thought:
So, I picked up the pencil, jabbed it securely into my ponytail and went on my way. (Yes, I know, gross, whatevs).
I had a few more encounters on my way to the cemetery, but this is the last one I’ll share for now. Looking up at the branches of this wonderfully old tree, I thought:
I had a few more encounters on my way to the cemetery, but this is the last one I’ll share for now. Looking up at the branches of this wonderfully old tree, I thought:
She heard me, and I hope you enjoyed my words today. So next time you’re held hostage by your own emotions, take a walk, and let your mind be free.
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