The third annual Agency Forum convenes at Dream Downtown in New York City on Nov. 13, where experiential agency leaders will hear about agency growth strategies and blueprints, trends, client retention, and driving innovation. But this year, we’re reimagining the format.
Leading Agency Forum 2024 are the experts from Projectory.live, who will incorporate playful, collaborative content experiences throughout the day that will have leaders thinking differently about not only their roles, businesses and people, but also about how to help clients think differently, too. Mixed into this year’s agenda is exclusive research, futurist perspectives, brand-side perspectives, peer insights, and discussions and mixers.
For a sneak peek, we sat down with Jeff Rogers and Oren Berkovich, founders, alongside Paddy Harrington, of Projectory.live, to gain a bit of insight into the evolution of conference learning and what to expect at Agency Forum.
Event Marketer: First things first—who is Projectory?
Jeff Rogers: We’re a merry band of facilitators, designers and producers who create playful ways for attendees to engage with and explore event content. The animating belief we share is that live events can (and should!) be participatory experiences.
Oren Berkovich: With Projectory, we’re trying to help event organizers bring content to life and enrich the experience with tactile, data-rich interactions that get attendees moving, talking, and collaborating.
EM: And who are Jeff and Oren?
Jeff: My personal jam is leading the facilitation and on-stage programming, and that’s pretty much in line with my background. I’m an interdisciplinary facilitator and experience designer with a focus on leadership, learning, and play. Outside of Projectory, I moonlight as an advisor on futures education projects at Stanford d. School, and I’m a principal at Be Radical, a boutique innovation consultancy.
Oren: I am a serial entrepreneur with deep expertise in the events and leadership development industries. I have a passion for hospitality and experience design, and at Projectory, I manage the client experience. I am also the founder of Bepossible, a design studio for impactful learning experiences, and the former president and ceo of Singularity University Canada.
EM: What is fundamentally wrong about meetings today and how they are being done?
Oren: As an event organizer myself, I know how we often must compromise on the vision of the experience to accommodate the reality of multiple stakeholders to satisfy and limited resources available. I think many meetings fail to make the attendees’ experience their top priority, which often leads to events that blast information and attendees who are not paying attention.
Jeff: I’d echo all that. My sense is that way too many meetings—and events—are actually “viewings” or showings that get stuck in broadcast mode to their own detriment. If we’re bringing people together, we should honor their time and the latent potential they’re always bringing to the table as contributors. Give them something to do together, engage them as partners, and everybody wins.
EM: What can attendees expect from the interactive experiences at Agency Forum?
Jeff: Building on that last response, we’ll aim to activate the expertise of the people in the room and not just that of the speakers and panelists. We’re always looking to get folks into conversation, collaboration, and even productive (respectful) disagreement if it can provide a new lens or perspective on the content.
At Agency Forum, we’ll be bringing a few of our favorite frameworks to support that kind of engagement, and after each keynote or panel discussion, we’ll introduce a conversation or interaction designed to push participants to more deeply connect with the content—and each other—in some unexpected and meaningful ways. And we’ll make sure the overall experience is also visually memorable and physically tangible because that’s kind of our thing.
Event Marketer and Projectory.live are set to host a new and interactive Agency Forum program.
EM: Any tips for our attendees on how to make the most of the experience?
Jeff: Number one tip: Show up! And specifically, show up the way you’d want everyone else to show up. Projectory will bring plenty of lean-in energy to the room and make it easy to engage, but ultimately, what everyone gets out of the experience collectively is a function of what each participant chooses to put in individually. So, bring a little bit of your own awesome to sprinkle in and know that you’ll get way more awesome back in return.
EM: Finally, what are three quick-fix ideas for event marketers to make their content more interactive?
Oren: First: Get away from theater-style seating, as the name suggests—it was designed for theater. Unless you are organizing an awards ceremony or a performance, create a seating design conducive to connecting people.
Second: Do not over-program or sell your agenda. At some point, sooner than you think, adding content detracts from the value and outcomes of the program. You don’t need more speakers, panels, or fireside chats, and you definitely do not need more announcements. The program is core to the experience and should include many occasions for ideas to be shared between participants and not just at them from the stage.
And third: If you feel like you need to add a stretch break to the program, go back to the drawing board. People lose interest quickly and are easily distracted, so sessions must be shorter and more diverse. There are many easy ways to get the audience involved, and the more involved they are, the more likely they will give your program their undivided attention.
