Transforming Conferences: Engaging Hearts and Minds
Do you go to conferences? Why did you go? What sparked your interest? Did it meet your expectations? Who did you connect with? What did you learn? What were you inspired to do? And what did you actually do?
Conferences have long been a staple for knowledge exchange, networking, and inspiration. While I believe that is the intention, I’ve often felt the standard conference model falls short of this as well as advancing innovative ways of learning, sharing knowledge, and creating open community engagement. From my experience as a presenter, organiser and participant, I see the opportunity and need to disrupt the conventional model and look for approaches that can transform the conference experience into a vibrant, dynamic, participative, connected and meaningful experience.
The Case for Change
The typical conference structure – keynote speakers and multiple streams and sessions, often creates an environment where meaningful interaction between delegates is limited and spontaneity non-existent. Sharing and gaining new knowledge is valuable, and I believe we can find new and different ways for to do this in conference environments
There are multitudes of experience and wisdom that reside with conference delegates that we generally don’t get the opportunity to hear from and learn from. While I’m curious to hear from the experts it’s also the deeper connections with fellow delegates that I am interested in when I go to conferences. I want to know their stories, what brought them to the event, their hopes, ideas and experiences from which I can learn.
Organisational consultant Harrison Owen got the picture when he came to the realisation that many great conversations, knowledge sharing, connections, creativity, decisions and action happened during conference breaks than the formal sessions.
What did Harrison Owen do?
He flipped the conference experience and came up with the concept of Open Space Technology (OST) where participants create the agenda in real time with a process that is intended to be highly participatory, self-organising, inclusive and collaborative.
The World Café is another participatory and collaborative process for hosting large group dialogue, sharing information, learning and can adapted to meet a variety of needs.
The Unconference offers another alternative conference experience where presenters and participants gather around themes, topics and challenges, and draw on each other’s collective wisdom to work through challenges, share knowledge and successes in a strengths-focused environment.
Engaging Hearts and Minds
These are a few examples of collaborative processes that can be utilised within a conference environment to engage people in ways that differ from the conventional conference presentation model.
Image: Ben Crossley, AITD Conference
We humans want to talk together about things that matter to us –
Juanita Brown and David Isaacs – The World Cafe
Here’s a few examples –
1. AITD Conference: At the Australian Institute of Training and Development conference, I facilitated an opening session called “Transforming a Conference through Play, Improvisation, and Connection.” Through improvisational activities, questions and imagery we created a sense of belonging and set the stage for connection, curiosity and a positive conference experience.
2. The Ideas Festival: “Creative Collaborations – Ideas that Matter” was a festival session I proposed to the Brisbane Ideas Festival which was made open to the public. I had no idea whether 6 or 60 people would attend. In the end it was closer to 60 people. Participants engaged in improvisational activities and discussions around festival themes such as “self and society” and “ecology and ethics.” The energy was high, and the two hour session gave attendees an environment and space to connect over topics that mattered. From starting out as a group of strangers, our time together gave people the opportunity to collectively and creatively share their knowledge and experiences and make commitments to future actions. The response was overwhelmingly positive and highlighted the value of interactive sessions in a highly structured and public environment. People who started out not knowing each other, left as friends having had a profound experience.
The Art of Management and Organization Conference
3. Art of Management and Organization: At the AOMO conference in York, UK we developed and offered the “City of Thought” project as part of the conference experience. This creative, three-dimensional, interactive intervention allowed delegates to construct a dynamic knowledge township, enabling cross fertilisation of ideas and artistic contributions as a response to the conference. It became a regular focal point for interaction, reflection and robust conversations. During the conference we watched the City of Thought emerge as contributions were made at all times of the day and night. The positive response from participants emphasised the importance of creative and collaborative approaches in academic conferences. As one of the delegates commented ‘it should be called the City of Thinking’ as we watched the ideas and structures emerge during the conference. Such was the response a similar whole of conference process took place at the next conference.
When the spirit of people is strong, focused and vibrant, wonderful things happen…
Harrison Owen, Open Space Technology
4. TEDx Kurilpa – “A New Australian Dream” – My contribution to this TEDx gathering was to design and facilitate a whole of conference experiential session at the beginning. The focus? To help participants connect, contribute, build rapport and create a sense of community among delegates. Group activities such as story-telling and performances were generated by delegates focused on the conference theme and emergent ideas. These efforts led to positive feedback and a stronger sense of community among attendees. Added to that conference organisers arranged meet-and-greet sessions and interactive lunches were organised to help people connect with different people.
So what? What is the impact?
The overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants at these events consistently underscores the effectiveness of these creative interventions. Some people find the interactive experiences a stretch out of their comfort zones. On the whole people find these interactive, collaborative sessions energising, reflective, and engaging, often leading to personal and professional commitments to action and new connections. The stretch is well worth it.
Creativity, Connection and Learning
Conferences should be places where creativity and learning go hand in hand. By incorporating artistic and participative elements, we can transform conferences into dynamic, inclusive, and meaningful experiences that create a highly connected learning community. I’ve seen it happen and experienced the shifts that occur when we create places for people to actively contribute to the conference experience, way beyond sitting and listening, and the occasional invitation to talk to the person next to you.
Next time you head to a conference I encourage you to ask yourself, what do I want from my conference experience? What do I hope happens during, and after the conference. How does this conference help me to learn new things, connect with people and encourage me to take action? How does this conference make me feel?
If you are organising a conference, I urge you to think beyond the conventional conference format. How can you re-imagine and design your conference to be enable more connection and to be a more human participant centric experience?
Be courageous, take some risks, open the space, invite people to be part of the process, to co-create and contribute in novel ways. Change the format, shake it up, disrupt and innovate. What is one small change you can make that will make a difference?
I guarantee you and those who attend will reap the rewards for stepping outside the norm, stretching outside of your comfort zone and doing something different.
If you would like help and support with your conference or a work event where you want people to connect, create, learn I urge you to get in touch and together we can explore what might possible for your context.
This article is drawn from my paper Conferences: Building a reflective learning community through creative interventions (originally published in the Action Learning Action Research Journal).
If you would like to read the full paper send a message and it will be sent to you. Alternatively use the link below.
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