Draft:Meeting Design

Review waiting, please be patient.

This may take 3 months or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 2,712 pending submissions waiting for review.

If the submission is accepted, then this page will be moved into the article space.
If the submission is declined, then the reason will be posted here.
In the meantime, you can continue to improve this submission by editing normally.

Where to get help

If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews.
If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed.

How to improve a draft

Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia.
Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup
Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references
Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article
Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article
Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources

You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article.

Improving your odds of a speedy review

To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags.

Add tags to your draft

Editor resources

Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs

Reviewer tools

Instructions · What links here · Meeting Design (talk: + · bio) · (log) · Copyvios report · reFill · Citation Bot · (Search: Google, Wikipedia) · Submitted 35 days ago by 36.224.211.101 (talk: D · +) · Last edited 35 days ago by Citation bot

Meeting Design refers to the collection of strategic, cognitive and practical procedures and tools used when developing the programmes for meetings and events. Its purpose is to deliver meetings that produce outcomes that correspond with the goals of the gathering. The term Meeting Design is commonly used when referring to the programmes for meetings and events, such as congresses, conferences, workshops, seminars and similar forms of live communications. Because of the overlaps in analysis, tools and formats, the term is sometimes also used for the regular or one-off business and coordination meetings held in organisations, although this is rarer.

History

Meeting Design is a relatively new field of work. The term appeared first in the early part of the 21^st century. Nevertheless, there were some pioneers ahead of the times, such as R. Musco in Italy, who published “Il Meeting Planner: Un Professionista tra Sociologia e Marketing^[1]”, later adapted into an English version with the title "Profession: Meeting Management - Design, Manage, Evaluate Conferences Effectively”.

The first publications on the topic reaching a broader audience were “Meeting Architecture^[2]” by Maarten Vanneste and “Into the Heart of Meetings^[3]” by Eric de Groot and Mike van der Vijver.

Vanneste introduced the term Meeting Architecture^[4], while De Groot and Van der Vijver used Meeting Design^[5] for the process described in this entry. Initially, the terms Meeting design, event design and meeting architecture were used almost interchangeably. In recent times, when referring to the process as defined earlier, Meeting Design has become the phrase of choice in the meetings industry (also known as “MICE industry”, which stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions).

Since the publication of the above titles, meeting design has gradually made its way into mainstream thinking in the meetings industry. For decades, the meetings industry has been using the term “meeting planner”, indicating the people who supervise and coordinate the operational and logistical activities needed for producing meetings and events. Since the professions of meeting designer and meeting planner partly overlap, today meeting planners also sometimes refer to their work as meeting design. This, however, tends to blur the distinction between the meeting designer’s work of conceiving the best possible programme for achieving the meeting’s objectives, and the meeting planner’s work of executing meeting programmes.

The work of meeting designers

The work of a meeting designer resembles that of all designers. In close cooperation with the meeting organizer, the meeting designer establishes the function or purpose of the meeting. An important difference with many other design activities is that a meeting is by definition a “one-off” event. The exact same conditions under which the meeting is held will never materialize again. As a consequence, the methodology of Design Thinking applies only partially to the design of meetings, as it is practically impossible to create viable prototypes. As in many design disciplines, the meeting designer has the task to merge a number of sometimes diverging interests and requirements into a programme that produces the desired outcomes.

Underlying thinking

One of the main tenets underlying the need for designing meeting programmes is that what happens during the meeting should influence the participants in such a way, that it will somehow change their behaviour after the meeting. Thanks to attending the meeting they will need to do more or less of something, or do something new or different, such as buying a product or a service (for marketing meetings) or changing their convictions or attitudes (for political or advocacy meetings). In other words, the meeting should have an impact on participants, thanks to the distribution of curated content that was shared or generated during the meeting through various channels, or thanks to the encounters that took place during the meeting.

In view of the above, meeting design connects to a broad range of disciplines and fields of knowledge that focus on behavior change and how to achieve it. This includes, but is not limited to, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, group dynamics, change management, art (in particular theatre), and others.^[6]^[7]

The meeting designer creates the experiences meeting participants will have in the course of the meeting or event and that will produce the change as outlined in the previous paragraph. For this purpose, they may adapt existing tools and formats for any specific meeting, or they may design tailor-made solutions. In this respect, meeting design fits the paradigm of the experience economy, as advocated by Pine and Gilmore.^[8]

What does designing a programme mean in practice?

The experiences designed by the meeting designer affect the programme in many different ways. Below is a non-exhaustive selection of programme-related issues that may be designed:

Communications prior to the meeting with those involved
What happens at any point in time during the meeting, i.e. the structure of the meeting and its timetable
Location and seating arrangements
The activities participants pursue in the course of the meeting, including their roles and responsibilities
Roles and responsibilities of those who provide content
The way in which the programme is directed: facilitation and moderation
Food and beverages
Activities on the programme not directly related to the content, such as networking moments and social activities

To achieve the above, meeting designers often make use of a comprehensive methodology, such as the one described in the book “Into the Heart of Meetings”, the Event Canvas, described in the “Event Design Handbook^[9]”, or “Meetings, by Default or by Design^[10]”.

Delivery Channels

Many organisations need to make the choice of whether to deliver their meetings and events face-to-face, online or hybrid. The latter is a delivery with some or all participants being present in one venue, while others (often content providers) are physically located elsewhere.

In line with the basic thinking about meeting design, the choice for a delivery channel depends largely on the objectives the organisers of the meeting wish to achieve, rather than on the technology and the platforms that are available.

References

^ Musco, Rodolfo. "Il Meeting Planner: Un Professionista Tra Sociologia E Marketing Dalla Teoria Ai Casi Concreti, Dinamiche Interne Ed Esterni Degli Eventi Aggregativi". Feltrinelli (in Italian).
^ Vanneste, Maarten (2009). Meeting architecture: a manifesto (3. print ed.). Tournhout: Meeting Support Institute. ISBN 978-90-90-22985-0.
^ Van der Vijver, Mike; De Groot, Eric (2013). Into the heart of meetings: basic principles of meeting design. Leeuwarden: MindMeeting BV. ISBN 978-1-4825-5394-9.
^ Vanneste, Maarten (2009). Meeting architecture: a manifesto (3. print ed.). Tournhout: Meeting Support Institute. p. 103. ISBN 978-90-90-22985-0.
^ Van der Vijver, Mike; De Groot, Eric (2013). Into the heart of meetings: basic principles of meeting design. Leeuwarden: MindMeeting BV. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-1-4825-5394-9.
^ Vanneste, Maarten (2009). Meeting architecture: a manifesto (3. print ed.). Tournhout: Meeting Support Institute. ISBN 978-90-90-22985-0.
^ Rogelberg, Steven G. (2018). The surprising science of meetings: how you can lead your team to peak performance. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-068921-6.
^ Pine, B. Joseph; Gilmore, James H. (1999). The experience economy: work is theatre & every business a stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 978-0-87584-819-8.
^ Frissen, Roel; Janssen, Ruud; Luijer, Dennis (2016). Event design handbook: systematically design innovative events using the event canvas. David Bancroft-Turner, Dave Gray. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. ISBN 978-90-6369-434-0.
^ Van der Vijver, Mike (2022). Meetings, by Default or by Design. Leeuwarden: MindMeeting BV. ISBN 978-9-0820-2095-3.

[1] Musco, Rodolfo. "Il Meeting Planner: Un Professionista Tra Sociologia E Marketing Dalla Teoria Ai Casi Concreti, Dinamiche Interne Ed Esterni Degli Eventi Aggregativi". Feltrinelli (in Italian).

[2] Vanneste, Maarten (2009). Meeting architecture: a manifesto (3. print ed.). Tournhout: Meeting Support Institute. ISBN 978-90-90-22985-0.

[3] Van der Vijver, Mike; De Groot, Eric (2013). Into the heart of meetings: basic principles of meeting design. Leeuwarden: MindMeeting BV. ISBN 978-1-4825-5394-9.

[4] Vanneste, Maarten (2009). Meeting architecture: a manifesto (3. print ed.). Tournhout: Meeting Support Institute. p. 103. ISBN 978-90-90-22985-0.

[5] Van der Vijver, Mike; De Groot, Eric (2013). Into the heart of meetings: basic principles of meeting design. Leeuwarden: MindMeeting BV. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-1-4825-5394-9.

[6] Vanneste, Maarten (2009). Meeting architecture: a manifesto (3. print ed.). Tournhout: Meeting Support Institute. ISBN 978-90-90-22985-0.

[7] Rogelberg, Steven G. (2018). The surprising science of meetings: how you can lead your team to peak performance. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-068921-6.

[8] Pine, B. Joseph; Gilmore, James H. (1999). The experience economy: work is theatre & every business a stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 978-0-87584-819-8.

[9] Frissen, Roel; Janssen, Ruud; Luijer, Dennis (2016). Event design handbook: systematically design innovative events using the event canvas. David Bancroft-Turner, Dave Gray. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. ISBN 978-90-6369-434-0.

[10] Van der Vijver, Mike (2022). Meetings, by Default or by Design. Leeuwarden: MindMeeting BV. ISBN 978-9-0820-2095-3.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]