- The Keynote Curators - Top Speaker Agency in North America
You can feel it the moment you walk in.
Some events run smoothly. The AV works, the coffee is hot, and the speakers stay on time. Yet other events? People are still talking in the hallway 45 minutes after the last session. Attendees are swapping numbers, planning collaborations, and already blocking their calendars for next year.
That second kind of event isn’t just well-produced. It’s a community.
As event professionals, we’re in the business of building those communities—often with shrinking budgets, mounting pressure to prove ROI, and audiences who are lonelier and more distracted than ever before. Therefore, understanding what separates a well-executed program from a transformative experience has never been more critical.
This isn’t about adding more activities to your agenda or spending more on production. It’s about designing events where connection becomes inevitable, where strangers become collaborators, and where your audience doesn’t just attend—they belong.
Here’s what most meeting planners miss: your audience is already wired to help you build community. Human values expert David Allison’s Valuegraphics research on event audiences revealed something remarkable. Compassion—defined as wanting to see situations improve for people—consistently shows up as a power value among both event professionals and attendees.
In other words, the people in your room don’t just care about their own badge; they genuinely care about each other.
This finding changes everything about how we should approach event design. Instead of treating the community as a happy accident that might occur during coffee breaks, we can intentionally design for it. Moreover, when we tap into this existing compassion, we’re not fighting against human nature—we’re working with it.
The attendees walking into your event want to make things better for someone else. They want to help the newcomer find their way, include the quiet voice at the table, and turn chance encounters into meaningful collaborations. Our job as curators and planners is to design experiences where that instinct has room to breathe and grow.
I’ve watched hundreds of keynotes over the years, and there’s a distinct difference between speakers who inspire individuals and those who build communities. The latter group doesn’t just deliver information—they create frameworks, rituals, and experiences that transform how people relate to each other.
These are four voices doing this brilliantly on stages right now, and their approaches offer a masterclass in community building that every event professional should study.
Shasta Nelson doesn’t just talk about connection; she gives audiences a framework for it. As a leading expert on friendship and belonging, Shasta has identified three simple ingredients that build relationships: positivity, consistency, and vulnerability. However, what makes her approach revolutionary for events is that she has attendees practice these elements in the room.
Her sweet spot is events that want people to walk out with new friends, not just new notes. She creates structured moments where attendees move from surface-level networking to genuine connection, often in less than an hour. For instance, she might have your audience share a meaningful story with a stranger, then reflect on which of the three ingredients made that moment work.
The result? People don’t just learn about community—they experience building it firsthand.
From co-founding iVillage and Brandless to scaling BabyCenter into one of the world’s largest parenting communities, Tina Sharkey has spent her career turning audiences into movements. What makes Tina invaluable for event professionals is her ability to help leaders see their event not as a “program” but as a platform—a place where shared purpose, story, and simple rituals transform customers into community members.
Onstage, Tina shares the design principles that made her digital communities thrive: creating spaces for vulnerable conversations, celebrating small wins publicly, and giving members agency to shape the experience. She helps planners understand that community isn’t something you announce in a closing keynote—it’s embedded in every decision you make, from registration to follow-up.
Similarly, she demonstrates how the same strategies that build online communities translate beautifully to live events when you’re intentional about it.
Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky is one of the top workplace belonging and culture speakers in the world, and it shows in how he approaches event audiences. Smiley gives attendees a practical playbook for creating human connection in hybrid, AI-fueled workplaces—tools specifically designed for making sure people don’t just “attend” your event, they belong to it and carry that feeling back to their teams.
His framework addresses the biggest challenge facing meeting professionals today: how do you create belonging when some attendees are in the room and others are on screens? Smiley doesn’t shy away from this complexity. Instead, he offers specific tactics for hybrid community building that actually work.
He might have your in-person attendees partner with virtual participants on a challenge, or create “belonging buddies” who commit to checking in with each other post-event. The key is that these aren’t feel-good exercises—they’re evidence-based practices that measurably increase connection and follow-through.
Chris Schembra turns rooms into dinner tables. As the founder and Chief Question Asker of the 7:47 Gratitude Experience™, he’s helped spark hundreds of thousands of new relationships through one deceptively simple prompt:
“If you could give credit or thanks to one person in your life that you don’t give enough credit or thanks to, who would that be?”
I’ve seen Chris work his magic both onstage and in breakout sessions, and the transformation is remarkably consistent. He gives you an evidence-based framework for gratitude that reliably takes people from “nice to meet you” to “I actually know you” in 90 minutes or less.
What Chris understands—and what he teaches event professionals—is that gratitude isn’t just a nice sentiment. It’s a technology for building trust quickly. When people share what they’re grateful for, they become vulnerable. Consequently, that vulnerability creates permission for others to do the same, and suddenly you’ve got a room full of people who actually see each other as humans, not just networkers.
His approach is particularly powerful at corporate events where attendees might be skeptical or guarded. Gratitude bypasses professional personas and gets straight to authentic connection.
You don’t have to rebuild your whole program to make community the star of your next gathering. I’ve collected low-lift, high-impact moves that I see working consistently across different types of events. These are practical, tested strategies you can implement immediately.
From the mainstage at the top of your program, try this: “Before lunch today, what’s one small way you can make this event better for someone else?” Have people turn to a neighbor and share their answer.
This simple prompt does three things simultaneously. First, it gives attendees permission to be helpful without being pushy. Second, it plants the seed that they’re not just passive recipients of content—they’re active participants in creating the experience. Third, it immediately creates a micro-connection between two people who might not have spoken otherwise.
Now compassion has a job description for the day. Your attendees aren’t wondering if they should help someone; they’re looking for opportunities to do exactly that.
Standard name tags tell people who you are. Upgraded name tags tell people how to talk to you. Add a line on badges that says: “Ask me about ___________.” Invite attendees to fill it in at registration—it could be a challenge they’re solving, a hobby they’re passionate about, or what they’re most excited to learn at your event.
You’ve just given every introvert an easy opening line. Instead of the dreaded “So, what do you do?” conversation starter, attendees now have specific, interesting entry points into genuine dialogue. Furthermore, this tiny design change signals that your event values authentic connection over transactional networking.
I’ve watched this single modification transform coffee breaks from awkward small talk into animated discussions about everything from business growth challenges to shared hobbies to innovative approaches people are testing.
At the start of any general session, ask each table to answer one shared prompt. Give them just three minutes, but make the question meaningful:
You’ve just turned rows of strangers into mini-support groups. When the keynote speaker addresses the challenge that Table 7 shared, those eight people lean in together. When someone at Table 3 mentions learning for their team back home, they’ve created instant accountability and connection with their tablemates.
This technique works especially well at multi-day conferences where the same tables might sit together for several sessions. However, even at single-session events, it shifts the energy from individual consumption to collective learning.
Before your closing keynote ends, borrow a page from Chris Schembra’s playbook. Have people text or write a quick thank-you to someone who made their experience better—a colleague who brought them to the event, a speaker who challenged their thinking, a volunteer who helped them navigate the venue, or another attendee who shared a valuable insight.
This practice does two powerful things. First, gratitude cements the memory of positive experiences, making your event more memorable long-term. Second, it strengthens the relationships formed during your event by acknowledging and celebrating them explicitly.
The beauty of this practice is its simplicity. You’re not asking for elaborate testimonials or formal feedback. Just a genuine, in-the-moment expression of appreciation that reinforces the community bonds your event created.
Your event doesn’t end when people leave the venue—or at least, it shouldn’t. In your post-event email, include three specific prompts your audience can use to keep the community alive:
These prompts are simple, specific, and rooted in compassion—that deep desire to see things improve for the people around us. Additionally, they give attendees concrete actions that maintain momentum without requiring major time commitments.
I’ve seen event professionals track these actions and discover that attendees who complete even one prompt are significantly more likely to register for next year’s event. The community building doesn’t stop when your program ends; it extends into the weeks and months that follow.
The tactics I’ve shared aren’t arbitrary. They work because they address fundamental human needs that research consistently identifies as crucial for belonging: being seen, having agency, contributing to something larger than ourselves, and experiencing authentic connection.
David Allison’s Valuegraphics research confirms what many of us intuitively understand: people attend events seeking more than information. They’re looking for connection, meaning, and the opportunity to make a positive impact. When we design explicitly for these needs, we’re not manipulating behavior—we’re removing barriers to what people already want to do.
The speakers I highlighted—Shasta, Tina, Smiley, and Chris—each approach community building from different angles, but they share common principles. They create structured opportunities for vulnerability. They give audiences frameworks, not just inspiration. They design experiences that make connection feel natural rather than forced. And crucially, they recognize that community isn’t a segment of your agenda; it’s the lens through which you design everything.
Let’s address the elephant in the room: proving the value of community-focused event design to stakeholders who care primarily about metrics and budgets.
Here’s what the data tells us. Events with strong community elements see higher registration for subsequent years, better session attendance throughout multi-day programs, more meaningful sponsor engagement, and increased likelihood of attendees bringing colleagues to future events. Moreover, when attendees form genuine connections at your event, they become voluntary ambassadors who recruit others.
The employee engagement benefits extend beyond the event itself. When attendees bring community-building practices back to their workplaces—which they will if you’ve modeled them effectively—you’re contributing to broader organizational culture improvements. This creates a halo effect where your event becomes known not just for great content, but for transforming how people relate to each other professionally.
Consequently, community-focused events don’t just meet ROI expectations; they exceed them by creating value that compounds over time rather than evaporating when the last session ends.
Community isn’t a byproduct of good logistics. It’s the goal.
When you design for belonging—when you tap into what David Allison’s data keeps telling us people value most—you’re not just filling seats. You’re building the kind of rooms where people feel seen rather than sorted, where ideas move faster because trust gets there first, and where compassion isn’t a slide deck talking point but how the event actually operates.
If you’re an event professional, this is your superpower. You get to be the person who decides that your next gathering won’t just be memorable—it’ll be meaningful. You have the opportunity to create experiences that attendees carry with them long after they return home, reshaping how they show up in their teams, organizations, and industries.
The strategies I’ve shared require minimal budget increases but demand intentional design. They ask you to think differently about every touchpoint, from registration to follow-up, always asking: “Does this bring people together or keep them separate?”
That shift in perspective—from event producer to community architect—is what separates good planners from great ones. It’s what transforms attendees into advocates and one-time participants into lifelong members of something larger than a single gathering.
I started this piece by describing that feeling when you walk into an event where real community is happening. People lingering in hallways, exchanging contact information, making plans that extend beyond the conference dates. That’s not luck or coincidence or the result of extroverted attendees happening to show up.
It’s the result of intentional design choices made by event professionals who understand that their job isn’t just logistics and content curation. Their job—your job—is creating the conditions where human connection flourishes.
The good news is that your audiences are already wired for this. They want to help. They want to connect. They want to make things better for the people around them. All you need to do is design experiences that give those instincts room to operate.
Whether you implement one of the tactics I’ve shared or bring in speakers like Shasta, Tina, Smiley, or Chris to embed community building into your programming, the principle remains the same: put community first, and everything else follows.
Your next event can be the one people are still talking about months later—not because of the production value or the celebrity keynote, but because it’s where they found their people. Where they discovered they weren’t alone in their challenges. They formed partnerships that changed their professional trajectory.
That’s the power of community. That’s what’s possible when you design for belonging from the start.
Ready to curate content that builds a stronger event community?
Explore community keynote speakers like Shasta Nelson, Tina Sharkey, Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky, and Chris Schembra at The Keynote Curators—and let’s design an event where your audience doesn’t just show up, they stick.
Want a more direct approach?
Email us today: info@thekeynotecurators.com so we can start a conversation.
If this spoke to you, subscribe to our newsletter and stay connected for more insights on transforming events into communities.
© 2025 The Keynote Curators. All Rights Reserved | Terms and Conditions
The Keynote Curators, 8275 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 200, Las Vegas, NV 89123
Local (310) 299-4595 | Toll Free (888) 585-8715 | info@thekeynotecurators.com
The Keynote Curators - Top Keynote Agency, USA.
Booking a Keynote Speaker: The Essential Checklist
