Can a rehearsal be better than a concert? You be the judge! Every summer since 1951, the world-famous Marlboro Music Festival takes place in my small Vermont hometown. Last week my wife and I attended the free morning rehearsals for two […]
Here’s an example of why I love conference facilitation and design. After setting up a Personal Introspective this morning (25 minutes), I turned over what happens to the small groups. Watch the listening and involvement of every person as I […]
“Experiential” is the new hot adjective used to describe events. “No more listening to speakers; you’re going to have experiences!” But there are genuine and phony experiential conferences. Sadly, many so-called experiential events are phony. The promoters slap a novel environment […]
For three months now, I’ve meditated for twenty minutes every day. Personally, this is a big deal, as I’ve struggled to maintain a regular meditation practice for decades. I’ve resolved countless times to meditate daily, and fallen off the mindfulness […]
How can we bring people together across divides? In April 2017, I posted the following to the NCDD-DISCUSSION list. (The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation [NCDD] is “a network of innovators who bring people together across divides to discuss, decide, […]
You can improve meetings by de-emphasizing status. Apart from my first book, I haven’t written much about status at events. It’s time to revisit this important topic. I think about status at events as the relative levels of proclaimed or perceived […]
Beware of “experiential” events that are just razzle-dazzle. “Experiential” has become a buzzword to use to describe hip events. Instead of listening to speakers, you’re going to have — wait for it — experiences! Sounds so much better, doesn’t it? The […]
40 seconds of highlights from the Participate! workshop and Solution Room I recently facilitated for the New York State Bar Association. One of the most rewarding aspects of my work is training associations how to create powerful and effective participant-driven and participation-rich conferences. […]
How to transform a conference from an impersonal forum for information exchange to a place where people feel they matter.
“People haven’t always been there for me but music always has.”