Innovation isn't invention. It's the question you stopped letting yourself ask. That's the reframe Diana Kander brings to this Event About It Aftershow, and it changes the entire game for event marketers, sales leaders, and growth teams chasing the next big idea.

In this deeper-than-the-main conversation, New York Times bestselling author Diana Kander joins host Megan Martin to translate her curiosity methodology into something an event-led growth strategy team can actually implement Monday morning.

If you've felt the lukewarm warning signs in your role, watched your experiment runway stretch to a full fiscal year, or quietly accepted "we've always done it this way" as a strategic direction, this Aftershow is for you.

What You'll Learn

• Why innovation isn't a thing, it's a mindset, and how to spot the difference between real innovation and same-hat-new-box

• Why cameras feel scarier than comedy clubs (and what it reveals about how leaders connect)

• The "7 chapters" theory of career reinvention and how to use it inside an org that won't let you leave

• Diana's $500,000 software failure at 29 and the iteration habit she'd install in every event team today

• How to run event experiments year-round when your conference is twelve months away

• The "closet of old ideas" test that reveals whether your team is actually innovating or just relabeling

• The Calendar Test for curiosity (your meeting calendar reveals exactly how curious your business is)

• The 3 questions to ask attendees who DIDN'T come back, and why nobody on your own team should make the call

• The 10-emotional-moments framework for designing event experiences attendees actually remember

• The Curiosity Muscle (Diana Kander) - the methodology behind asking the people who left, not just the people who showed up

• Curious Like It's Hot - Megan Martin's question-first diagnostic for stagnant industry symptoms

• Reinvention Math - translating Stanford's "Designing Your Life" research into event marketing and sales leadership

About Diana Kander

Diana Kander is a New York Times bestselling author of All In Startup, The Curiosity Muscle, and Get Curious and Grow. A serial entrepreneur and former senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, she's spent her career helping organizations turn curiosity from a corporate value into a daily habit. She came to the U.S. as a refugee from the Soviet Union at age eight, is a Georgetown-trained attorney, and is one of the most-booked innovation and curiosity keynote speakers in the country.

Connect with Diana:

• Website: dianakander.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianakander/

• Instagram: @dianakander

Diana and her husband Jason support Veterans Community Project, which builds tiny houses and wraparound services for homeless veterans. Learn more at veteranscommunityproject.org.

About Your Host

Keep Megan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She's the host and executive producer of Event About It, co-founder of Opportunity Hunters, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.

Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:

• Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.com

• Newsletter (Step and Repeat): msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup

• Consulting and strategy: msquareddynamics.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/

• Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutit

• TikTok: @eventaboutit

The best conversations start after the show ends, and the best ones keep going in your inbox. Subscribe to Event About It wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Step and Repeat newsletter at msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup.

Until next time, stay curious.

The events industry has a curiosity problem. Attendees changed. Buyers changed. Metrics changed. And most of us rebooked the same hotel.

This week on Event About It, New York Times bestselling author and innovation keynote speaker Diana Kander joins host Megan Martin to diagnose five stagnant event strategy problems nobody in the industry is naming out loud, and the curiosity question that breaks each one open.

If you're building an event-led growth strategy, leading a marketing team, or running B2B events that need to drive measurable pipeline, this is the diagnostic you didn't know you needed.

What You'll Learn

• Why "the biggest threat to your event isn't failure. It's the success you stopped questioning."

• The one question that turns flat sponsor renewals into new logo growth

• Why an attendee NPS of 72 every single year isn't a win, it's a warning sign

• How to design a day-three draw before you lose the room

• Why a 4.5-out-of-5 session score is the worst feedback you can get

• What Snoop Dogg's business model teaches the events industry about staying relevant decade after decade

About Diana Kander

Diana Kander is a New York Times bestselling author of All In Startup and The Curiosity Muscle, with her new book Get Curious and Grow available now. She came to the U.S. as a refugee from the Soviet Union at age eight, became a Georgetown-trained attorney, founded around ten companies, served as a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, and is one of the most-booked innovation and curiosity keynote speakers in the country.

Connect with Diana:

• Website: dianakander.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianakander/

• Instagram: @dianakander

About Your Host

Megan Martin is the founder of M Squared Dynamics, a consulting, facilitation, and content strategy firm helping event leaders, marketers, and sales teams turn live experiences into measurable business growth. She's the host and executive producer of Event About It, co-founder of Opportunity Hunters, and a two-time PCMA Visionary Award nominee (2022 winner). With nearly 20 years in the industry, Megan operates at the intersection of event strategy, marketing alignment, and behavioral intent signals, turning events from line items into pipeline drivers.

Connect with Megan and M Squared Dynamics:

• Podcast: EventAboutItPodcast.com

• Newsletter (Step and Repeat): msquareddynamics.com/stepandrepeatsignup

• Consulting and strategy: msquareddynamics.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp/

• Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutit

• TikTok: @eventaboutit

Keep the Conversation Going

Subscribe to Event About It so the Aftershow lands in your feed the second it drops. Diana and Megan go deeper on why innovation isn't invention, the curiosity practice every leadership team should install tomorrow, and the three questions to actually ask the people who didn't come to your last event.

Send this episode to the marketer, sales leader, or event strategist who keeps telling you their last event "went great."

Most event teams can't answer the most basic pipeline question. Steph Pennell built the framework. Here's the whole thing.

She googled the domain mid-call. Bought it on the spot. A few months later she quit ZoomInfo, flew first class to the south of France with no plan, and came back ready to build something from scratch.

This is the Aftershow. It goes deeper.

Steph Pennell — The Event Critic — is back for the second half of her conversation with Megan Martin. This time they get into the actual frameworks: how to calculate revenue in the room, how to build a pre-event outreach matrix that segments by audience and relationship stage, how to get BDRs and SDRs to show up for your events, and how to speak the data language that finally makes sales care.

Then they get honest about the stuff that doesn't usually make it into the strategy deck — leaving a toxic environment, building a business with no safety net, ADHD in the events industry, and why the F*ck You Fund is one of the most practical moves you can make whether you go out on your own or not.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

→ The revenue in the room metric: how to break down ARR influenced, expansion pipeline, and net new revenue from a single event

→ Why most companies would restructure their entire event portfolio if they actually ran the attribution numbers

→ The outreach matrix: pre-event segmentation by audience type, seniority, and relationship stage — built to run at scale

→ How to work event registration into BDR and SDR quota so the whole go-to-market team shows up for your program

→ How to stop reporting attendance and start reporting pipeline — the switch that gets demand gen and finance off your back

→ What she actually looked at when she told a client to cut five events from their calendar

→ The F*ck You Fund: what it is, why it matters, and why you should be building yours right now

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Welcome to the Aftershow

01:17 The Event Critic: How That Name Actually Happened

04:06 The Biggest Shock Going from B2C to B2B Events

07:28 Why Starting in Sales Made Her a Better Event Leader

11:05 How to Actually Unify Sales and Events (Not Just "Align Earlier")

14:03 Why BDRs and SDRs Are Your Secret Weapon for Event Registration

18:22 Revenue in the Room: The Metric That Changes the Conversation

22:29 The Outreach Matrix: How to Get the Right People in the Room

28:37 Post-Event Follow-Up by Segment

32:30 When You Know It's Time to Leave

34:46 ADHD, Human Design, and Honoring Your Energy

44:54 The F*ck You Fund Is a Business Strategy

46:00 Back of House: A 911 Line for Event Professionals

48:27 Until Next Time

CONNECT WITH STEPH PENNELL:

LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/theeventcritic/⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/bystephpennell/⁠

Website: ⁠www.byingenue.com⁠

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Subscribe to Event About It:⁠ https://eventaboutitpodcast.com⁠

Submit a story or moment from the field:⁠ https://eventaboutitpodcast.com⁠

Follow Megan on LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp⁠

Follow Megan on Instagram: ⁠@m2dynamics⁠ and ⁠@eventaboutit

ABOUT EVENT ABOUT IT: Event About It is the podcast for B2B event marketers, demand gen leaders, field marketers, and anyone who needs their events to do more than look good in the recap deck. Hosted by Megan Martin of M Squared Dynamics, each episode connects event strategy to pipeline influence, revenue, and event-led growth — with enough personality to make it worth your Friday commute.

New episodes every Friday.

Submit a story or moment from the field: www.eventaboutitpodcast.com

#EventROI #EventMarketing #B2BEvents #EventStrategy #EventLedGrowth #DemandGeneration #FieldMarketing #GoToMarket #EventMeasurement #B2BMarketing

Your event had 2,000 attendees, a standing ovation, and an open bar. Cool. But did it drive pipeline? The Event Critic has thoughts.

Most B2B event recap decks look the same: great attendance, strong NPS, everybody had fun. What they rarely say is whether any of it moved the business forward.

In this episode, Megan sits down with Steph Pennell — The Event Critic — to play Pipeline or Party, unpack what large-format trade shows keep getting wrong, and tell the story of an event where nobody touched the swag table, nobody played Dance Dance Revolution, and the client called it the best event of the year.

If you've ever handed leadership a recap deck and quietly wondered whether it actually counted, this one is for you.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

• → Why a sold-out keynote with a standing ovation might still be brand awareness, not pipeline — and the one addition that changes everything

• → What happened when zero activations landed and the event was still a massive success (and the insight that explains it)

• → Why large-format trade shows keep falling short at the thing that actually drives pipeline: genuine human connection

• → How to know if your company is actually ready to hire an event consultant before you burn the budget and the relationship

• → The 60-40 rule for event innovation — what to keep, what to push, and why most event teams are playing it way too safe

CHAPTERS:

00:48 Meet Steph Pennell, The Event Critic

01:38 The Story Behind the Company Name Nobody Expected

04:55 Pipeline or Party: Real Scenarios, Real Verdicts

12:44 Vent of the Week: What's Actually Broken in B2B Events

25:41 The Event That Worked Because Nobody Used the Swag Table

33:50 The 60-40 Rule for Event Innovation 35:29 Where to Find Steph

CONNECT WITH STEPH PENNELL:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theeventcritic/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bystephpennell/

Website: www.byingenue.com

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Subscribe to Event About It: https://eventaboutitpodcast.com

Submit a story or moment from the field: https://eventaboutitpodcast.com

Follow Megan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp

Follow Megan on Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutit

About Event About It

Event About It is the podcast at the intersection of events, marketing, and business growth — where we prove that live experiences aren't just logistics, they're a growth channel. Hosted by Megan Martin, founder of M Squared Dynamics and one of the leading voices in event-led growth strategy. New episodes every other Friday.

#EventMarketing #B2BEvents #EventROI #EventStrategy #PipelineGeneration #EventLedGrowth #DemandGeneration #FieldMarketing #EventPlanning #B2BMarketing

Yes. She canceled Christmas. And she went to Waffle House instead of making Swedish pancakes.

But before we get there — this aftershow is one of the most dense, useful, and occasionally unhinged episodes we've done. Christine Martin is back, and we go deep on the things that didn't fit in the main episode: speaker management truth bombs, post-event metrics that actually matter, a tax crash course event pros desperately need, road warrior travel hacks that will change how you pack, and the crowdsourced audience questions that somehow led to a story about AI agents auditing people's garage sales.

Christine has attended, spoken at, and worked conferences and trade shows for 30+ years. She is a senior solutions consultant at Avalara, a road warrior with more flight miles than most event pros I know, and in this Mother's Day special — also my mom.

Which means this aftershow goes places no other event podcast has gone. Including: the Christmas she canceled and the year she gave her work friends huckleberry jam and "bottle condoms" as Christmas gifts.

There is real strategy in here, I promise. But there's also a story about an Indiana tax auditor who went on vacation, picked up a gift shop catalog, and triggered a full corporate audit.

In this aftershow:

• The speaker management question every event team should be asking — but never does

• Why scan count is a vanity metric

• Tax 101 for event pros

• The road warrior travel hacks Christine swears by

• What it actually takes to build a career in events as a single mom

• The crowdsourced audience questions

If you sponsor events, speak at them, plan them, or run a business that shows up at them — this is the aftershow you didn't know you needed.

⏱ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Welcome to the Aftershow: Meet Christine Martin (for anyone just joining us)

01:00 — When Christine knew Megan was going to make a career in events

05:00 — Career pivots: pharmacist → Belize → communications → public administration → event industry

08:00 — The most useful things Megan learned from watching Christine work (and she actually gives Christine credit for them)

14:00 — Single mom on the road: when is it worth it, how to find balance, and the Sister Wives theory

22:00 — Road warrior travel hacks: the Paris-to-Mumbai story, hidden city ticketing, the double toiletry kit, bottle covers, and the travel power strip you need in your bag

30:00 — Speaker management secrets: what event teams get wrong, what makes Christine say yes to coming back, and why she hasn't seen session feedback in three years

42:00 — Post-event metrics that actually matter: 30/60/90 pipeline tracking, booth scan ROI, and why your event team should know the sales cycle length for the product they're supporting

55:00 — Tax 101 for event pros: registration fees and sales tax, VAT on international events, multi-state income tax exposure, 1099s for paid speakers, digital receipts, and the AI agents now used to audit garage sales

1:10:00 — Audience questions

1:30:00 — The Christmas she actually canceled (the full story, with context)

1:38:00 — Curiosity card: what would your home reveal about you?

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Subscribe to Event About It: https://eventaboutitpodcast.com

Submit a story or moment from the field: https://eventaboutitpodcast.com

Follow Christine Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-martin-9a02961/

Learn more about Avalara (tax compliance for event tech providers): https://www.avalara.com

Follow Megan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp

Follow Megan on Instagram: ⁠@m2dynamics⁠ and ⁠@eventaboutit⁠

Your events are being graded in real time by attendees who will never fill out your feedback form, never tag you in a post, and never tell you what they actually thought. They'll just decide whether they're coming back.

Today I brought one of them into the studio.

Christine Martin has attended, spoken at, and worked trade shows and conferences for 30+ years — as a tax professional, a solutions consultant, a road warrior, and now as the woman on the other side of every event decision you've ever made. She's sat through your keynotes, walked your expo floors, stood in your speaker green rooms, and gone home deciding whether it was all worth signing off on again next year.

She's also my mom. And for this Mother's Day special, she's finally on the record.

This episode is for every event professional who says they design for the attendee — but has never actually asked one. Christine audits real event planning decisions in our game segment "Audit the Agenda," tells you exactly what she needs from event teams to succeed as a speaker, vents about the industry habits that have been driving her crazy for decades, and shares a memorable Vegas event story that I can only describe as... educational.

No marketing spin. No industry politeness. Just 30 years of attendee experience, delivered directly.

In this episode:

• Why the most valuable attendee feedback you'll ever get is the kind that never shows up in a post-event survey

• What experienced attendees and speakers actually want from your event team (and what's making them quietly opt out)

• The real reason "same as last year" is costing you attendee retention and event ROI

• What a tax pro thinks about your booth activation strategy — and whether it's actually generating pipeline or just foot traffic

• The event in Las Vegas that involved a bush, a private party, and a badge check that did not go as planned

If you design events, sponsor them, speak at them, or approve the budget for them — this episode will change how you think about attendee experience.

⏱ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Cold Open: "I've been in events since daycare"

01:04 — Guest Introduction: Meet Christine Martin

02:00 — The Marriott Headquarters Daycare Story (and the cover photo nobody saw coming)

03:45 — Game Segment: "Audit the Agenda" — a 30-year attendee audits your event planning decisions

17:00 — Vent of the Week: Hotel mix-ups, umbrella swag in the desert, and "Sally Events"

21:00 — Event About It: A Vegas party, a bush, and what actually drives people to your booth

24:00 — Episode Close + After Show Tease

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Subscribe to Event About It: https://eventaboutitpodcast.com

Submit a story or moment from the field: https://eventaboutitpodcast.com

Follow Christine Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-martin-9a02961/

Learn more about Avalara: https://www.avalara.com

Follow Megan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmartincmp

Follow Megan on Instagram: @m2dynamics and @eventaboutit

About Event About It

Event About It is the podcast at the intersection of events, marketing, and business growth — where we prove that live experiences aren't just logistics, they're a growth channel. Hosted by Megan Martin, founder of M Squared Dynamics and one of the leading voices in event-led growth strategy. New episodes every other Friday.

#EventStrategy #AttendeeExperience #EventMarketing #EventROI #EventPlanning #EventIndustry #EventLedGrowth #TradeShowStrategy #EventPros #MeganMartin #EventAboutIt #MothersDaySpecial