If you attended IMEX Frankfurt last year, you may have participated in a study taking place on the exhibition floor, where you and a partner were presented with a hypothetical, possibly bizarre, scenario and given three minutes to come up with a list of potential ideas and solutions. Depending on which of the three groups you and your partner were placed into, you would’ve completed the task while facing each other across a table, communicating via telephone or via video conference.
Unbeknownst to participants, the trials were collecting data to determine the impact of these technologies on meetings and creative thinking. It revealed that face-to-face meetings generate significantly more ideas than do video or audio meetings.
The study was conducted by The Meetology Group, which was founded by Jon Bradshaw in 2011. Bradshaw’s background is in athletics and sports performance; he studied humans from physical and medical perspectives as an athlete and personal trainer and also has many years of experience in the international meetings industry, working with Reed Exhibitions on EIBTM and with IMEX as director of business development for seven years.
Based in England, The Meetology Group adds psychology to the mix, studying “the science behind effective meetings," and offers consultation services.
People Power
Bradshaw explains that he is often surprised by how little consideration is given to how attendees behave, both as a group and individually, and he feels that their emotional wellbeing is frequently neglected or overshadowed by strict content and operational views, despite its importance.
“People are the most important aspect of any meeting,” he says. “Without them, it’s just a room.”
The group is engaged in both secondary and primary research, such as the study on face-to-face meetings. The data collected at IMEX indicated that pairs working together in person generated 30 percent more ideas than the pairs working virtually.
Much of the company’s time is spent examining old studies and seeing how the data can be applied to improve meetings. For example, research from the University of Colorado at Boulder indicated that physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth. For planners, this means that “If you hand someone a cold drink, they’ll associate those chilly emotions with you [the meeting organizer], and won’t feel as connected to the event,” explains Bradshaw, adding that temperature, color, layout and smell can all impact behavior in surprising ways.
He hopes that the findings from this study will get people curious about the interplay of psychology and business, and hopefully attract sponsors so The Meetology Group can begin to carry out several of the research studies that are prepared and awaiting funding.
“If this knowledge is shared, attendees can convince the people who control budgets why face-to-face meetings are important, and explain why they should send people to exhibitions.”
“We’re still a relatively small team, but we’re releasing a huge amount of information to the industry,” Bradshaw says.
Jon Bradshaw, CEO,
The Meetology Group
www.meetology.com | @meetology
