Newspaper headlines: clarify content, signal feeling, hint at twist.
technique — attributed to Lauren Kotkin
Kotkin admires newspaper headline writers. They summarize exactly what is in the article and the feeling of it. They signal whether it is a movie review and whether it is positive or negative. They hint at any slight twist in the content. Kotkin's team works to emulate that craft in session titles and descriptions. The crux of the matter, in an entertaining way if possible. The discipline matters because session titles are how members decide which sessions to attend six months before the conference. A vague title produces empty rooms. A precise, entertaining title produces full rooms of people who knew what they were coming for.
For conference programmers, learning directors, and content marketers thinking about session titles and event-program copy. The technique is most useful as a discipline when sessions are being titled in batch and the temptation is to default to generic phrasings.
session-titles, headlines, newspaper-craft, entertainment-value