Behavior is the only thing event design should try to influence.Janssen's framing of event design is clinical. Behavior is the only thing he tries to influence; that is what he wants to isolate. He defines behavior as everything you can observe with a camera: what someone says and does. The objective behavior is nothing more, nothing less, than that. If you design experiences that change behavior to a degree you would not expect, that is the finest example of event design. The reframe sharpens every design decision. Decoration that does not move behavior is overhead. Programming that does not move behavior is filler. The discipline is operationally rare and produces events that justify their budgets in terms an executive can defend.For event designers, corporate event leads, and meeting professionals thinking about what their events are actually for. The principle is most useful as a corrective when events have become ritual rather than instrument.
An event is dislocation in service of faster behavior change.Janssen's definition of an event is precise. An isolated period of time in which people are temporarily dislocated from their normal reality in order to change behavior faster or more effectively. The travel itself starts the shift; being out of routine, in a different mode of thinking, makes people conscious of what is changing in themselves and in others at the same table. The dislocation is not the inconvenience that has to be tolerated; it is the design instrument that makes behavior change possible. Online events that try to skip the dislocation are doing different work. The implication for hybrid and virtual formats is that they have to find different mechanisms to produce the same dislocation effect.For event designers, learning and development leaders, and corporate event teams thinking about format choice between in-person, hybrid, and virtual. The principle is most useful when budget pressure is pushing toward virtual without accounting for the dislocation effect.
Event owners have four intentions: attitude, learning, skills, knowledge.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.
Shell out one percent of total event hours for the design.Janssen's allocation rule is operational. One hundred people spending eight hours together equals eight hundred event hours. One percent of that is eight hours, which is what the design team should spend together in front of a big Event Canvas. Stand up at a wall, walk through every stakeholder's entry and exit behavior, articulate the value the design is supposed to create. The discipline matters because design time is almost always under-allocated. Teams spend hundreds of hours on logistics and minutes on design. Janssen's one-percent rule produces designs proportionate to the event's investment. The investment is small and the returned quality is large.For event producers, corporate event leads, and agency producers thinking about how to allocate design time on a project. The technique is most useful as a budget argument when design time is being cut to save costs.
Empathy mapping is a team process; never solo.Janssen's empathy-mapping discipline is operational. The team puts itself in one stakeholder's shoes at a time, looks through their eyes, thinks and feels like them, listens to what they hear. They articulate the pains and the gains, because those are the building blocks that reveal the emotions that will drive actions. Critically, empathy mapping is never attempted solo. It requires four or five people to empathize with one stakeholder. One person's empathy map is too narrow. Five people's collective map produces the multi-dimensional view of the stakeholder that the design needs. The technique generalizes for any product, service, or experience design context where stakeholder understanding has been delegated to a single team member.For event designers, product designers, and service designers thinking about how to do stakeholder research well. The principle is most useful as a corrective when empathy mapping has been treated as a solo exercise.
Show the empathy map to the stakeholder; let them correct it.Janssen's validation step is precise. Once the empathy map is drafted, hold it up in front of the stakeholder and say four people spent forty-five minutes thinking about you. We would like you to point out the differences between what we think you think and what you really think. The stakeholder will help adjust the map. The discipline matters because most empathy mapping ends without the validation step, which means the design proceeds on assumptions the team never tested. With the validation step, the design is built on corrected understanding rather than imagined understanding. The technique generalizes for any user research context where insights have been generated without the user signing off on them.For event designers, product researchers, and service designers thinking about how to validate stakeholder understanding. The technique is most useful as a feedback loop after empathy-mapping sessions.
Constraints make you creative; the idea quarantine waits for them.Janssen's Event Canvas process treats constraints as the creative instrument. Time available. Money available. Expected revenue. Once all the restrictions are on the table, the team goes back to what he calls the idea quarantine: a place where ideas have been dumped during the discovery phase, before constraints were known. The ideas get held up against the design frame. Every idea may get a number of jobs done within the constraints. The technique inverts the standard creative process, which treats constraints as the enemy of imagination. Janssen's version uses constraints as the editing instrument that turns a pile of unfiltered ideas into a designed event. The constraints do not limit creativity; they direct it.For event designers, product designers, and creative directors thinking about how to use constraints productively. The technique is most useful as a frame against the instinct to brainstorm without limits.