Las Vegas, March 18-21, Mandalay Bay Convention Center

Have you ever attended a conference and found yourself “tuning out”?  PowerPoint after PowerPoint, same old routine, anticipating that “ah ha” moment?  Join us for a new approach at the Modern Customer Experience in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Convention Center from March 18-21 where plenty of these “ah ha” moments await you!

At Oracle, we decided to shake things up a bit and invest in our conferences to better understand what our customers are looking for and study how people learn. In 2016, the Oracle Global Events team, with support from some prominent academic institutions and agency, researched, surveyed and experimented at our conferences and the result was the ‘Collective Learning Program.’

The most striking discovery was that we know people learn by doing, with interactive methods and encouraged social interaction. Attendees retain more and are more internally motivated after participating in these collaborative sessions. As much as 90% of what we do we’ll remember, versus only 10% of what we’ve seen or read. And when I refer to “tuning out”, studies show that as much as 68% of information is forgotten just 48 hours after a lecture.

With our Collective Learning Program formats, speakers take on more of a facilitator role to collectively extract knowledge, raise awareness of trends and issues and solve problems as a team. In some instances, there are even purpose-built Collective Learning Program rooms designed for learning. They have transparent walls with props, flip charts and come equipped with other tools and tactics in a casual learning environment suitable for team activities.

One session leader hosted a Collective Learning Program styled session on sales performance management to emphasize the driving force behind incentive compensation. He wore a suit designed with dollar signs, then had the audience wear different hats so they could assume roles from their organization. They addressed traditional challenges and incentives, came up with new ideas and learned how technology such as sales automation and AI could make their teams more effective and focused.

In another format termed “Burning Questions”, the presenter promoted the topic of interest and the entire session was led by questions from the audience. Participants have certain objectives in mind when they attend a conference, so this is a good way to help them with knowledge experts and other customers who face the same challenges. This format works well in shorter sessions such as the Theaters on the exhibit floor, which are shorter and require no pre-registration. 

Flip It

The “Flipped” style session turns a session upside down by starting with an experience such as a demo, visual, or other exercise. For instance, perhaps you want to show how leads pass from marketing through to sales and ultimately show ROI. After going through an initial experience, the audience dissects the process and solution. By doing so, learning is achieved with the added benefit of networking and sharing knowledge.

Home Room Approach

The “Home Room” is typically scheduled early on in the conference. This allows attendees to connect with the right session topics and thought leaders with some guidance from an event team member who knows intimately where and when things will occur, including keynotes, awards, receptions and of course, the featured band on the customer appreciation night.

You will know that the Collective Learning Program ideology is being artfully executed when session leaders create their own format. It may be a hybrid of existing defined formats or something completely out of the box. For instance, in one case, a facilitator had 30 participants from the audience write their biggest challenges for product configuration on boxes. All of the boxes were then used to build a wall in front of the room. In the session, the group with the aid of the facilitator tore down the wall one brick at a time, addressing each issue, with enhanced with anticipated visuals or technology tools to elaborate on the challenges and to provide solutions. Not only was it fun, but everyone left with a sense of accomplishment and a complex topic was demystified.

At Modern Customer Experience, watch for these tactics in your sessions and be ready to participate. Pre-register for one of the Collective Learning Program (CLP) sessions in the purpose built rooms and get the most out of your experience at Modern Customer Experience.