Follow 

Share

Archived reviews are more than 24 months old, and aren't counted towards the average five star ratings or percent recommended.

Disappointing & Disengaged

Content Customization
1
Contracting Process
5
Speaker Preparation
2
Active Partnership
2
Effective Takeaways
1
Stage Presence
1
Evaluation Outcomes
1
Visual Aids
2
PITA Factor
8
Kind of Presentation: 
Keynote
Breakout
Topic Areas / Focus of Presentation: 

Dr. John Zeisel was contracted to speak at our 2018 Annual Convention & Expo. He was contracted for our opening keynote, and then 5 breakout sessions following. The purpose was to provide an in-depth, full day training on dementia and Alzheimer's. In our contracting phase, we were assured that each session would build upon the previous session and that attendees participating in his track for the day would walk away with numerous takeaways. Unfortunately, we heard the opposite - most of the content was repeated, and the final session didn't cover any of the materials that had been marketed. Below I will share staff and attendee feedback.

 

Staff Feedback:

  • Dr. Zeisel needed constant reminders in regards to when his paperwork was due.
  • Planning discussions with Dr. Zeisel were redundant – staff had to continually provide Dr. Zeisel with the same information again and again. It started to seem like he didn’t care about the event.
  • We had asked Dr. Zeisel to submit his PPT well in advance of the program. When we received these files, we communicated multiple times to Dr. Zeisel that the video files were not working, but he never responded and the issue was never resolved before the event. When we arrived on-site the files were still not working. Staff had to spend almost 2 hours on-site at the event working with Dr. Zeisel to try to get his embedded videos in his PPT slides to work.
  • We had an agenda sent to him outlining where/when he needed to be present and he still needed constant follow-up.
  • On the day of his presentation, he arrived late without notifying staff. Staff were unable to reach him via cell phone and scrambled to locate his whereabouts.
  • Several staff members commented on his overall delivery and mentioned that he just wanted to chat with staff and not present.
  • Staff received a lot of negative feedback of the repetitive nature of Dr. Zeisel’s sessions. When staff had initially contracted him, we had discussed ensuring that there was no duplication between sessions.
  • For the final session, we heard from many attendees that Dr. Zeisel spoke on an entirely different topic than we had identified/marketed/planned for which left many attendees very unhappy.

Attendee Feedback:

  • The first/opening speaker (physician) on day one was good. I attended several of his sessions.
  • Opening speaker on November 5 was very poor.
  • Dr. John Zeisel is very knowledgeable but struggled to teach all day and stay within his topics. He kept wanting to ask the audience what they wanted to hear and wanted to just chat. He should have stuck to his objectives. Once again, very smart man and a wealth of information. The last session of the day, didn't even take place: "Scripted Improv".
  • First keynote speak was uninspiring and boring.
  • The content of the keynote was very dry, the room was dark, it was not necessarily new information.
  • Too much Dr. Z. There was an overlap in a lot of information.
  • The keynote speaker was not up to par. Having 1 speaker for multiple sessions was not good. Especially since he was not a good speaker.
  • I thought the keynote speaker was poor
  • Wouldn't recommend using the Day 1 opening Keynote Speaker again.
  • Dr. Zeisel's presentation pathophysiology and scientific theme lost the audience
  • The first speaker of the day was great.
  • Would have enjoyed more variety of speakers. Dementia speaker sessions were redundant.
  • The keynote/following series seemed drab at times.
  • The opening speaker (Dr. Zeisel) I didn't think knew the audience very well with respect to his subject matter. He is a very educated man, but I think his presentations missed the mark.
  • The keynote speaker must be able to keep the audience's attention.
  • I received a lot of negative feedback on the education talking to several of my peers. A lot of it was on Dr. Zeisel and his presentations. His demeanor and delivery had people asleep. I think he was confused on his topics for his sessions. He was repeating a lot of stuff and then would talk about stuff from an upcoming session. I spoke with people and received numerous texts on how bad he and his material was.