Hey Reader,

Each week in this newsletter I take a question from a reader. This week’s question feels timely, it comes from a Head of Internal Comms in Belfast:

Well lucky you because I’ve spent the last 6 months designing my own in-person event for The Curious Tribe so why don’t I share my thinking and my approach and see if it sparks some ideas for you?

Next week, 20 members of The Curious Tribe are flying to Barcelona for our first ever Global Gathering. 20 people, from all over the world, gathering in person for the first time. Some of them have been in the community since December 2023 and have never met face to face.

Here’s how I designed it 👇

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SPONSOR: The Curious Tribe

Chloe Slim joined The Curious Tribe with a deep desire to learn and grow.

She was the only person focused on internal comms person in her organisation and she wanted people to bounce ideas off. She felt ready to level up her skills and influence and knew that having real-time peer advice and support was the way to do it.

She joined for a sense of belonging and increased confidence.

But jaysus she has outdone herself. Not only has she a place to belong, her confidence has skyrocketed. After only 8 months in the tribe she has achieved remarkable results. Chloe has:

➡️ Achieved an internal promotion

➡️ Won her organisation’s Colleague of the Year award

➡️ Become the person people come to with tricky comms problems

Chloe is incredible, isn’t she? And now she has a team beside her, a tribe of 75+ internal comms pros around the world and deep support all year round.

The Curious Tribe is my membership community for ambitious, curious internal comms pros who want to achieve more in their career and have more impact in their job. If you’re looking for a place to connect, upskill and accelerate your career in internal comms, you’ve found your people.

Are you the next member of The Curious Tribe? 👀

Join the tribe here

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Event planning: start with what you don't like

I tend to dislike conferences for the most part. Maybe this is why I put off doing my own in-person event for so long.

I don’t care for sitting in a chair staring at a set of slides all day, and I don’t like being a passive recipient of information either, being expected to just sit still and take in content for hours at a time. I also don’t like most conference venues because they tend to have the same things in common; no natural light, uncomfortable seats, bad coffee, grey décor and usually a quite stiff corporate vibe. And networking in a room of 300 people as an introvert? Get me out of here!

So when I decided to host my own in-person event for my community, I started here. I started with all the things I personally don’t like about conferences. And thought about how I could flip them all and bring together an event that was actually enjoyable to attend and where you really had the chance to learn.

Get clear on your objectives: what is this actually for?

With any event, slow down a bit before you jump into the weeds. Forget about venues, speakers, agendas, activities… these come later. First you need to figure out the purpose of the event. What’s it for? What are you trying to achieve?

For The Curious Tribe Global Gathering, I came up with three objectives:

• Connect internal comms professionals who often work in isolation
• Create a space for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing on real industry challenges
• Deepen relationships in the community

Everything I planned after that had to serve at least one of those objectives. If it didn’t, it didn’t make the cut. Setting these objectives gave me real clarity and helped keep me focused.

Design for audience value

Once I had objectives, I began thinking about designing the event.

What kind of topics or sessions should I include? Well I quickly figured it was a bit silly of me to decide by myself, given that this is a community after all, so why not ask the tribe? I gathered info on what topics people were interested in learning about, what topics people had expertise in that they could share about and I based the event content entirely around that.

What was interesting was that people signed up to attend the event without knowing any of the topics or speakers. This was a clear signal that people were coming for the gathering itself, not just the content. This told me two things:

• Content is NOT king at small events like this
• People come to in-person events for more than just information

Think about how it feels to be there

I spent a lot of time thinking about the experience of attending. How would it feel to be part of this? How would it feel to be in this room or that room, with this format or that format, with this time frame etc?

I reckon this part is where most conferences fall down. You sit in the same room, in the same chair, watching back-to-back PowerPoint slides for six hours. It’s passive, it’s exhausting and it’s frankly boring. The experience isn’t great.

So I’ve deliberately designed this event to be interactive and full of movement. We have a gorgeous venue with different rooms, we have couches and lounge chairs, we have areas to hold workshops that have no screens and therefore no powerpoint, we have luxe spaces all over the hotel to have small group mastermind sessions. We even have a rooftop pool with a view of the Sagrada Familia. (Yes, really!)

I have carefully designed the agenda so that we are not sitting in one space for very long. There are breaks, there is movement, there is an intentional design behind each session which has been planned from the perspective of the attendee.

My recurring planning question has been: How would an attendee feel throughout the day?

Make the event a destination, not just an event

I thought carefully about the location of the event. I know the usual thing is to hold something in London for internal comms pros, but I wanted a different vibe and a different energy. I didn’t want people to just get the tube to the event and then get the tube home again, doesn’t that feel like a normal work day? (Notice again my focus on how the attendee feels.)

So I decided let’s go somewhere with (a) sunshine (b) great food (c) amazing sightseeing opportunities and local culture. I also thought it would be great to pick a place where no one in the tribe lives, so we’re ALL travelling there and we’re all having the same kind of novel experience.

And thus Barcelona was chosen. A special mention here to Blink, the sponsor of this event, they have been an absolute dream to partner with. Thanks to them, this event is completely free for Tribe members to attend.

Don’t forget to add the fun

And finally, I designed with fun and enjoyment in mind. Remember that one of my objectives is to deepen relationships in the community; you don’t make friends just by sitting in working sessions, you make friends through social activities. So we’re having a drinks reception by the pool on the first night, on the second night we’re doing something I’ve wanted to do for ages which is a Silent Disco Walking Tour, and the following day 10 of us are staying on longer to do a guided tour of Park Guell.

So who says a conference or offsite has to be boring? You just need to design with intention.

The principles, if you want them:

• Start with objectives, not tactics. What is this event actually for?
• Ask your audience first. Before you build the agenda, find out what they need.
• Design the experience, not just the content. How does it feel to move through the day?
• Create conditions for fun. It deepens connection faster than any workshop.

If this event goes well (and I’m bloody sure it will), this won’t be the last Curious Tribe Global Gathering. I will do more of them, in different locations around the world.

Shall I do a post-event review once we all get back? Do you want to see some pics and hear if I actually managed to pull this off? Reply to this email and say “I WANNA KNOW!” if you do haha.

Thanks for reading and stay curious,

Joanna

Find me on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and check out my book​

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Want to work together?

• Join The Curious Tribe. This is my membership community for ambitious, curious communicators who want to achieve more in their roles and have fun at the same time. Membership allows you to work directly with me for 12 months, make deep connections with other communication pros who 'get it' and improve your skills through training and learning. More info here.
• Ready to review your channels and content but don't know where to start? Download my practical Internal Comms Audit Playbook to guide you through a DIY audit - no expensive consultant needed.​ This has ready-to-use templates and checklists to give you a systematic way to do your own audit which you can repeat every single year. Get it here.
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