Perhaps you’re wondering: What’s the connection between facilitation, rapt attention, and love? Why am I drawn to facilitation? I’ve often heard an uneasy inner voice that wonders if it’s about a desire or need for control and/or power. And yet I know through […]
I have learned so many lessons from improv. Here are more of my experiences and takeaways for event professionals from the wonderful five-day improv and mindfulness workshop Mindful Play, Playful Mind, held June 8-13 2016, at Mere Point on the beautiful Maine coast […]
Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to ask for help. I ask for help I had been fretting for several months on how to move ahead on convening and facilitating more of the participation technique workshops that are dear to my […]
Learn to Design Participation-Rich Conferences Learn to design participation-rich conferences at Participate! Labs. “You don’t take a workshop. You are part of one.” —Seth Godin We’ve known for a long time that lectures are terrible ways to learn. Today’s attendees […]
I’ve returned from a wonderful 48-hour whirlwind of experiments and play with 30 meeting designers in Utrecht, The Netherlands. We came from Europe, South America, Slovakia, and the U.S. (me) to learn, share, and connect at the first Meeting Design […]
Ten minutes after I’d finished facilitating a large national association meeting hour-long fishbowl sandwich discussion on solutions for a persistent industry problem, the conference education director walked in. His jaw dropped. “The attendees are still here talking to each other! That […]
One of the hardest things for me to do is to shut up and listen. “If I could give just one piece of advice to all medical students, I would say, ‘Show up completely, and then shut up for at […]
Should we play music at conference socials? Even though socials aren’t the best way to meet new people at conferences, strong cultural pressure makes socials mandatory for most events. And if you want to make socials a maximally effective opportunity for interaction and engagement keep them music-free. Why? […]
The Power of Participation: Creating Conferences That Deliver Learning, Connection, Engagement, and Action About the Author Acknowledgments Foreword How to use this book Part 1: Eliminate Attendees at Your Meetings Get on your feet! A dilemma: Hear or do? […]
In 2011 I ran a two-and-a-half-hour participative techniques workshop on the last afternoon of a four-day conference. After we ended, a participating supplier came up to me. He told me that he had made many more useful connections in that […]