Latest / PCMA Convene Podcast / Talk: Surprise, Humor, and Humanity: How Great Keynotes Become Unforgettable
Transcript
- Convene Talk, ep. 97/June 5, 2026 *Note: the transcript is AI generated, excuse typos and inaccuracies Magdalina Atanassova: This is the Convene Podcast. Welcome to another Convene Talk. Michelle, you're the one picking the topic, so over to you. Michelle Russell: Thanks, Maggie. Dave Lutz, we're going to talk about his most recent column. He has been contributing a column to Convene for, I'm going to say maybe 20 years. And I always ask our columnist contributors to try to ground them in real life case studies, examples of clients they work with, because I think that's the way we all learn best is from real life examples rather than conceptual. You should do this or here's what other, you know, generally what other groups are doing. And this time he hit it out of the park. And it was about the American Occupational Therapy Association's annual conference and expo this year held in Anaheim. And the general session speaker opening general session speaker was J.R. Martinez, who is an army veteran and he suffered full body burn wounds during an attack in Iraq. And during his keynote, he spoke about how important occupational therapy was to his recovery. And he spoke about a woman named Kim who was his occupational therapist. And unbeknownst to him, the American Occupational Therapy association had found Kim through their network with the military and had secretly arranged for her to be flown to Anaheim and to appear on stage with him at the end, introduced by the CEO of the association. And and he was overcome. And you could there's a video of it. He was just overcome with surprise and gratitude. And the audience was just like on their feet, which you can understand because they were experiencing the same surprise and seeing it play out in real time. And I think for me, it's that element of surprise that always makes a memory stick out in my mind. And I'm thinking specifically, and I think I've talked about this before of a session that I was at years ago. I think it was ASAE's annual meeting. And Doris Kearns Goodwin, who is a Pulitzer Prize winner and is a biographer, and I think she's called America's historian, she was the speaker and she was speaking about at that time, her most recent book, which was a biography of Abraham Lincoln. And she got on stage and she stood behind the lectern and she did not budge from the lectern. And I thought, oh, my God, this is going to be painful. History was not my favorite subject. I am telling you, I was riveted. The entire audience was riveted. She did not move from that lectern. But she's just an amazing storyteller, and she was able to talk about Lincoln in a way that was so human and Relatable. And I thought this was what was missing from all my history lessons, because my history, the way I learned history in school, was like dates and wars and movements and not really about the human side of it. If you were to ask me anything specific about what you talked about, about Lincoln, I couldn't summon that up. But I do have a distinct memory of her speaking and being absolutely riveted by her. So I think there's something about surprise that it really cements an experience in our minds. And also just the fact that she went against what I would think is, like, you know, like Speaker 101, which is that you should, in order to keep the audience interested in you, you should move around the stage, you should use your hands, you should have these drum. You should do all of those things that I think keynote speakers do. She didn't do any of those things, and she still maintained everybody's interest. So I'm just curious about anybody else on the team in terms of sessions that have really stuck with you, either while you've been here in our industry or attended a conference before you actually were officially part of the events industry. Barbara Palmer: Barbara, you know, the surprise thing is so true. And the one. The thing that popped into my mind, it was a workshop that was in Copenhagen, and it was this experienced designer named Bo Kruger. And it was probably about 25 people. But we got to the room where this workshop was going to be held, and all of the furniture was in a pile in the middle of the room. There were, like, it was lightweight tables, ottomans, you know, there were some chairs around. And he was just like, I want you all to just take 10 minutes and set up the room. And so all of us strangers, we all just were, like, looked at each other, and, you know, we only had a few minutes, and it just broke the ice. And, you know, we just set up these different little areas, and it turned out like we could change them, but it just set entire tone for just breaking down those barriers. And he did a lot of very inventive things. It was the first time I'd ever been introduced to the idea of making some point saying, how do you feel about this? If you feel really strongly, go stand over here and go stand over there. And we sorted ourselves out, like the old numbered lines at Southwest. Like, we were very nuanced, like, oh, well, you know. So I thought that that was a great surprise. The other thing that you made me think of, Michelle, talking about how engaging Doris Kearns Goodwin was, is before I worked in this industry, I was at A talk. And it was a great, you know, a good talk. But all of a sudden, cell phone rang and we all froze. Like, is this me? I'm interrupting this very distinguished speaker's talk? Oh, my gosh. And the speaker froze as well. And she said, that's my phone. And she ran off to the side of the stage and grabbed her phone and we all laughed. And I have seen research that, that really does help. You know, you don't have to be polished and perfect and follow all the rules. Just be a human and tell your story. And Jen, what are you thinking about? What story do you have to tell? Jennifer N. Dienst: No, I, I love that, that, like, human element just makes everyone, speaker, audience included, like, relax. You know, I've been trying to rack my brain, like, the best ever keynote I've ever seen, and I, I, I can't quite come up with one. I'm sure I could if I really thought about it, but what the. One of the first that comes to mind when I think about, like, Kinos, that really left an impression on me was Trevor Noah last year. I think part of it was because I just read his book. I also have a giant crush on Trevor Noah. However, he doesn't. But, however, I loved him so much because his ability to talk about really, really serious topics, including his own upbringing, background. If you don't know about that, read his book, go buy it. The second. But that as well as what's going on in the world, his ability, his pod. He does an enormously good job of this on his podcast. And I think his ability to kind of dive into those things with humor and grace and depth and is astounding to me. I'm just so impressed by everything he says. So that, to me, that session, that keynote, really, really left an impression on me. I actually didn't get to see all of it. I had to leave to catch my flight. But the little bit that I did see, I was just wowed by especially seeing him in that context where it's not scripted. You know, a book, he can sit down and he's got help and, you know, but seeing him on the stage relate to our audience in a way, because a lot of keynoters don't do that. We've had some really great keynoters at our events who have done this, but I've also been to keynotes where they've kind of forgotten who they are speaking to. And I think as a writer and editor, like, we all understand that, like, your audience is number one, right? Like, you can't forget, like, who you're speaking to. And he did a really good job of weaving the audience into what he was talking about. Anyway, that's my two cents. I think humor is the humanizer and a keynote. I love any serious topic, any serious thing in my life. I think humor adds light and gravity. That's just me, but I feel like other people feel like that too. Anyway, Kate, what's on your mind? Kate Mulcrone: You have set me up perfectly. I was also going to talk about Trevor Nola's PCMA Convening Leaders 2026 keynote. And to add to what Jen just said, he was so present. He engaged so deeply. Even though we were in a huge ballroom space, it felt so intimate that even though I was like two hours away from heading to the airport to go home, I found myself being like, oh, let me put my phone away. I want to really listen to what he has to say. And part of that was my sense that he was not giving some kind of scripted talk that he's given a million times before. He was actively engaging with the mc, Holly Ransom, the audience of event planners, by thinking about event planning, like Jen already mentioned. And something about that feeling of immediacy kind of cut through my sense that I'm sitting at this work meeting and I'm going to do this after and I'm going to do that after. And I kind of just like lost all of that and really listened to what he was saying. And I mean, also, like Jen said, using humor to kind of like, do that final tap of the hammer to drive in the nail of a serious point was absolutely brilliant. Then he did it so well. My favorite example was when he talked about how everyone feels overworked and, like, it's impossible to get your job done and how are you going to do it? And he said, ask a little kid to show you what you are doing at work, and they will be like, I'm so busy, I can't talk right now. And everybody laughed, but it was exactly the, like, humor nail, like, final tap. Because he had said a bunch of really serious stuff. Talking with Holly before about how event planners are a profession where you are doing too much. It's always gonna be impossible. And I just loved that sense of immediacy. But I also remember thinking, what a shame that he didn't open the meeting instead of closing it because so many people were already on their way home. And it seems to me it's not a problem. It's just that I think that he did so much more than any of us were expecting. Even those of us who have been going to meetings forever. Maggie, what do you think? Magdalina Atanassova: So it's interesting that you both talked about the humor because actually when Michelle introduced the topic, the first thing that came to mind was one specific keynote at Community leaders listen from 2015, which I'd never forget. And I at the beginning, just like Michelle, I had kind of a question mark when the keynote, the person went on stage. I had not heard of her. It was Diana Nayad, who is a very celebrated American marathon swimmer, of course, coming from my part of the world, I had not heard of her. But she's very known for her record setting swims and her historic Cuba to Florida crossing at the age of 64. So not knowing who she was, I had no idea. She looked kind of stuffy beginning but I will never forget her speech. I would never forget how she made me feel. And I remember at the end when she finished, she of course got a standing ovation which lasted forever and. And I was so overtaken by all the feels pretty much. And I was thinking, is it only me? And then I looked around and people had tears in their eyes and I was like, oh my God, thank God it's not only me. That was my immediate kind of thought because she was so powerful in her message, so real and raw. And she showed images from her swim and it was amazing. And now there is a movie about her so people can see the. What you really went through in, you know, a bit of artistic speck of dust there. But still it was very, very impressive and I'll never forget it. And thinking of such strong emotions during keynotes or events, it seems that all my memories revolve around music somehow. So in EDUCON 2022 it was in New Orleans. It was my first edge con, so there was a lot of music because it was in New Orleans and I the music part very strongly. It was very intertwined to the keynote with the MC who was a musician, he performed music on stage. So it was very real. I loved it. For me it was a way also to connect with the local culture which was incredible. Also Convening EMEA 23 again music and Barbara wrote a story about it which I'll link in the show notes because it was incredible. Back then it was in Denmark and what they did for the opening, there was some local musicians who led the participants to sing what a Wonderful World. At the beginning I was like, we all need to sing that together. But wow, I mean it was just wow, wow, wow. When we all started singing the song, it was just like a Wave went through you, and you started feeling the music in a whole nother level. And I thought that was just incredible. Barbara, do you want to add something? Barbara Palmer: Yes. Just on the topic of humor. And this is not a session, but it's relevant to our audience because it was a site visit, and this was also in Copenhagen. And we went to a hotel, and, you know, generally they would show you, the planners, they would show them the standard room and then a suite, and, you know, just different rooms. So they would know. And at every one of these rooms, they had staged a story, and one of them was a murder scene. I mean, it wasn't graphic, but it was just like. It was just so unexpected and so fun. It kind of reinvented that experience of trooping from room to room and going, oh, I see, there's two pets. Let me. I tend to gravitate right to the window to see what the view is. I just thought it was so inventive and, again, just funny. So after you saw the first one, you couldn't wait to see what was going on in the suite. And then at another hotel, they had, like, a mystery, so they put clues in, like, a conference room. That's the only time that's ever happened where hotels have actually done something other than gotten the master key and opened the door. And I thought it was really fun. Magdalina Atanassova: That reminds me of Kate's story from Spokane. Right. With a kind of a different site inspection. Kate, you want to share about it? Kate Mulcrone: Sure. This is something. You can actually listen to it if you want on our podcast. But I attended a meeting in February with a group of about two, a little over, actually 250 association professionals. And. And the Spokane Convention center is just too big to necessarily, like, do a big party throughout. So instead of doing, like, a site tour and then having a little event at the end, they just did the whole reception as a progressive event where, like, you started out one place, and then just as it was starting to, like, get stale, we moved to the next part. And it's funny, too, because I interviewed the. The director of the facility who planned this, and she said one of the bonuses about doing it this way is if something goes on for too long, it's actually easier to catch up, not harder than if you have all of your, like, all of your programming happening in the same space. And that's not something I would have thought about, but people really, really responded well to, like, surprise after surprise, even though you would think that as association professionals, they go to a lot of events and they're probably whatever. So, yeah, I mean, I, I do think it's funny how we've ended up today talking about what breaks through for us as people who attend a lot of events. Magdalina Atanassova: It seems that we all connect through a surprise or humor or the unexpected or someone that can just make us feel what they feel, which I don't think it's a surprise. But I think now in this AI world would crave more of that. So I wonder how else are we going to evoke emotions and feelings and connection from people moving forward? Thank you everyone for the contributions, and I'll be linking a lot of those stories in the show notes. As usual. Remember to subscribe to the Convene Podcast on your favorite listening platform to stay updated with our latest episodes. For further industry insights from the Convene team, head over to PCMA.org/convene. My name is Maggie. Stay inspired. Keep inspiring. And until next time.