participant-driven and participation-rich

Anca Trifan interviews me about participation-rich meetings and event design

Monday, February 20th, 2023 by Adrian Segar

A photograph of Anca Trifan interviewing me about participant-driven and participation-rich meeting designYes! Just posted: Anca Trifan interviews me on her show Events:demystified. We talk about all kinds of things, with a focus on my work and thinking about participant-driven and participation-rich meetings and event design.

I think this is one of the best interviews I’ve done. Anca gets full credit for asking great questions and also taking the time to edit the interview. Thank you, Anca!

Here’s her video and podcast for your viewing and listening pleasure. I’ve added a timeline below to help you jump to the bits that really interest you. (Though, actually, it’s all terrific!)

Enjoy!

Timeline

MM:SS Content
02:00 Anca introduces me.
03:30 How Anca and I met.
04:30 What I’ve been doing since the COVID pandemic started.
06:00 On traveling to events, and my passion for what I do.
07:45 Behind the scenes: How I got into designing and facilitating participant-driven and participation-rich meetings.
11:00 What participant-driven and participation-rich meeting design means, and the core components.
13:45 Creating a conference program on the fly at the event. It sounds scary, but it works!
15:00 Why we need to have participant-driven and participation-rich meetings. Lectures are a terrible way to learn anything.
16:30 Online meetings benefit from these designs too.
17:00 Participant-driven and participation-rich meetings help people connect better.
17:30 Online has displaced the value of lectures at in-person meetings.
18:45 Participant-driven and participation-rich designs bring connection around meaningful content into the sessions.
19:00 How Ask me anything (AMA) sessions allow participants to choose what they want to discuss with an expert.
20:00 Are AMA sessions easy to run?
21:00 What motivates me to do this work.
22:45 My early experiences of traditional conferences.
24:30 Sponsor break.
25:30 On Tahira Endean‘s (excellent) book Intentional Event Design and my books’ focus.
28:00 Some of the changes I’ve seen in events in the last dozen years.
30:30 “You never really had control of your event anyway.”
31:00 “Are we moving from content-first events to connection-first events?”
34:00 The value of presenters (and stand-up comedians) who interact with their audience.
35:15 “I’m interested in creating meetings that change people’s lives.”
36:15 A piece of advice for event professionals.
38:15 A piece of advice for association professionals who are responsible for events.
40:00 Following me on social media (and how to say my name correctly 😀).

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Ask Adrian Anything — a free online participant-driven workshop on the future of events

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022 by Adrian Segar

Here’s a rare opportunity to ask me anything about meeting design and facilitation at a unique, free, online workshop. Join me next Thursday, March 10th, 2022 at 12:00 pm EST for Ask Adrian Anything (AAA): an online participant-driven workshop on the future of events.

Though the central core is the AAA session, this is an active learning workshop. During it, you’ll experience some of the practices I use to support and build participant learning, connection, engagement, and community.

How long will the workshop last? That’s up to you! I’m willing to keep it going as long as you have questions and concerns to share. When it’s over, you’re welcome to stay and socialize online, and I’ll stick around for informal chats.

If you want to join us, it’s important you’re ready to begin at 12:00 pm EST. We’ll open the workshop platform at 11:45 am EST so you’ll have time to do the usual camera/microphone online setup boogie for a prompt start at noon EST.

Register for freeWe’ll meet online, using Gatherly [1, 2], a platform designed for online social interaction and learning. [Apart from being a fan, I have no affiliation with Gatherly, and am donating my services.] The Gatherly platform will allow us to learn about each other and about top-of-mind issues, concerns, and questions through small group work, human spectrograms, and fishbowl discussion.

Ask Adrian Anything

This is an opportunity for you to experience one of my participant-driven workshops. You’ll learn through doing, both about other participants and how to implement what you experience into your own events.

  • Experience a participant-driven online event.
  • Learn by doing participant-driven methods that increase event engagement, connection, and community.
  • Meet, workshop with, and learn from other event professionals.
  • Take this opportunity to ask Adrian anything about meeting design and facilitation.
  • Enjoy time after the session in an online social environment that closely mimics meeting in-person socials. You’ll be able to find folks you’d like to talk with and hang out one-on-one or in small groups for public or private conversations.

Register for free

Tags: , , , , , , | Posted in eventprofs, NoRepost, Workshop | No Comments »

Make your entire conference a braindate

Monday, November 25th, 2019 by Adrian Segar

Make the entire conference a braindate. Photograph of two women in front of a stucco wall and a window facing each other and talking.Why not make your entire conference a braindate?

One of Skift’s “10 event trends for 2020” is networking. The report predicts:

“Activities such as braindates that deliver more meaningful connections will become mainstream at events.”

The author, Julius Solaris, tweeted:

“…braindates are in our top 10 trends for 2020…Too much of an undervalued tool and approach. Time to end that.”
—November 20, 2019 tweet

I like the braindate approach, but it doesn’t have to be something that’s grafted onto a conference. Why? Because good event design is about how a conference works.

Participant-driven and participation-rich meeting designs incorporate a braindate’s purpose — one-to-one or small group connection around relevant content — organically into every session. In addition, the beginning of a peer conference uncovers the topics that people want to talk about, as well as providing plentiful opportunities for participants to discover others who share their challenges and interests.

By the time a peer conference is underway, you will have learned core information about many of the other participants. And they, of course, will have learned important things about you!

So there’s no need to add a braindate process to a well-designed meeting. Instead, make your entire conference a braindate!

Photo attribution: Flickr user viejozapato

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