Judge an event by conversations curated, not attendance achieved.

distinction — attributed to Natalie Jones Hallahan

Hallahan's reframe for the virtual era is also a useful metric for any era. In the new space, you can judge an event not by how many people attend but by how many conversations you are curating. Attendance is a vanity number. Conversation count is a measurement of the outcome the event actually exists to produce. The discipline shifts what the team optimizes for. A hundred attendees with no curated conversations is a worse event than thirty attendees with twenty curated conversations. The metric forces the team to invest in the bridge-building work rather than the broadcast.

For diplomatic event organizers, summit producers, and senior convening teams setting KPIs. The metric pairs well with Brewster's principle that the survey is the blueprint, not the receipt.

measurement, conversations, attendance, metrics