Event owners have four intentions: attitude, learning, skills, knowledge.

technique — attributed to Ruud Janssen

Janssen reduces event-owner intent to four basic categories: change in attitude, learning, skills, and knowledge. The mix of those four, and how much each gets amplified at what point in the experience journey, is what creates the event design. The design is nothing more or less than framing behavior change. The framework matters operationally because it forces the event owner to articulate what they actually want, which most never do. Owners who cannot name the intent get events that hit none of the four. Owners who name the intent and the mix get events designed against a clear target. The discipline is the conversation, not the framework.

For event designers running discovery with corporate event owners. The framework is most useful as a structuring tool at briefing, where the conversation about intent usually skips the specificity required to design well.

four-intentions, event-owner, design-input, mix