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?
Meetings are a mess—and how they got that way
How technology shapes our system of education
How culture shapes our system of education
Why participation is so important for today’s meetings
How adults learn
Active learning
The best way to learn
What is active learning?
How we learn
The learning environment
Learning lessons from physics and programming
Next practices, not best practices
Why we should use active learning at conferences
Connection
How social media (especially Twitter) strengthens my connections in the world of events
The advantages of supporting connection during meeting sessions
Movement and sharing
The classroom as a network
Connecting early and often
Engagement and community building
What is engagement?
Measuring event engagement via participant ratings
Using outcomes to measure event engagement
Should you attempt to measure engagement?
From engagement to community
What is community?
The value of community
Communities and associations
Building and maintaining community
Communities and meetings
New kinds of meetings
The value of face-to-face meetings in building community
Community building, engagement, and participation
Action
What can we do to get more effective action outcomes from our meetings?
Wishes
Part 2: Creating an Environment for Participation
Introduction
Creating a participatory event environment
Badge design
Meals
The Event Space
Venue layout
Physical environment
Sound considerations
Lighting
Room set
You don’t always get what you set
Seating
Avoid fixed seating
Use comfortable, lightweight chairs
Provide just the right number of chairs
Seating Matters
Provide explicit seating instructions
Seating arrangements influence individual and group experience
Sit next to someone you don’t know
When to use tables
Rounds
Information display
Attachment solutions
Please let us post!
Wall treatment solutions for venues
Pens
Navigational aids
Apps
Native and web apps
Timing
Staying on time
Timekeeping for balanced sharing in groups
Recommended timekeeping methods
How to use FlexTime for group sharing timekeeping
Giving up control
The Myth of Control
Safety
Create an environment in which you can feel OK about making mistakes
The right to not participate
Provide clear instructions
Consider providing explicit ground rules
Conclusion
Ground rules
Explicit versus implicit ground rules
What ground rules should I use?
The Four Freedoms
Confidentiality
Staying on time
Committing to ground rules
Treating participants like adults
Conclusion
Play and fun
Be alert for opportunities for spontaneous play and fun
Laughter
Supply a physical environment that suggests and encourages play and fun
Games
Thoughts about gamification
Facilitation
The task of facilitation
Facilitation as leadership
Process leadership is different from content leadership
Giving directions
Bringing people back on track
Facilitating effective communication
Supporting engagement
The gift of listening
Small group facilitation
Why you should facilitate small group selection
Goals for small group selection
How large should small groups be?
General considerations when forming groups
Performing group selection
Getting attention
Raising hands
Clap once, clap twice
Distinctive music
Asking questions
Ground rules for questions
Crafting questions
Additional considerations in using questions
When you are asked questions
Meta-questions
Be careful with “why?” questions
Be comfortable with silence
A (sometimes) magical question
More questions?
White space techniques
Provide more out-of-sessions time
Give attendees explicit permission to miss sessions
Provide longer breaks
Eliminate distracting business and entertainment during meals
The conference arc
Openings
Middles
Endings
The conference metaphor
A wedding
A conversation
Saying goodbye
Powerful metaphors
And now for something completely specific
Part 3: Compendium of Participation Techniques
Participation techniques overview
Introduction
How to use this compendium of techniques
Techniques by goal
Techniques by conference phase
Techniques by group size
Techniques glossary
Techniques for encouraging connection outside conference sessions
Badge It!
Seat Swap
Openers
What are openers for?
Building meaningful connections
Opening techniques . . . and more
The Three Questions
Description
When?
Resources
Why use question cards?
How?
Roundtable
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Human spectrograms
Description
When?
Resources
How? One-dimensional human spectrograms
How? Two-dimensional human spectrograms
How? State-change human spectrograms
The Solution Room
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Post It!
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Middles
Techniques that facilitate productive small group discussions
Techniques that support effective voting
Techniques that create learning opportunities
Small group discussions
The benefits and pitfalls of small group discussions
The purpose of small group discussions
Pair share
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Guided discussions
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Open Space
Description
Why I don’t like unconferences
When?
Resources
How?
World Café
Description
When?
Resources
How?
World Café Lite
Fishbowls
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Affinity grouping
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Participatory voting
Ways to use participatory voting
Low-tech versus high-tech voting solutions
Hand/stand voting
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Roman Voting
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Card voting
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Table voting
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Dot voting
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Anonymous voting
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Creating learning opportunities
Short form presentations: Pecha & Ignite
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Case studies and simulations
Description
When?
Resources
How?
A simulation example: Harvest by Dennis Meadows
Endings—consolidating learning and moving to outcomes
Pro Action Café
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Plus/Delta
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Personal introspective
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Group spective
Description
When?
Resources
How?
Appendix 1: Minimum Room Dimensions for Roundtable and Closing Sessions
Appendix 2: Personal Introspective Questions Card
Notes