Conversifying a Conference
At the 2014 Management of Innovative Technologies Conference in Piran, Slovenia, we loosened a traditionally fixed agenda and created spaces for emergent conversation and unplanned workshops and sessions.
Potential research projects and partnerships emerged that would never have come about had the opportunity for conversation not been created. We also used one of the sessions to explore the notion of “inquiry” which forms the basis of much interaction and energised dialogue at conferences and events. The conference still respected its traditions of key note speakers and talks, but we designed more time for discussion with speakers and ensuring that presentations were more responsive to the emerging conversation on the day.
Opening Space at the World Fringe Congress
The World Fringe Congress brought together organisations from all over the world to explore the future of Fringe Festivals and to identify potential links and common ground. Sandwiched between two more traditional days of talks and panel discussions, we conversified the middle day! During an Open Space Conference format, participants created the agenda and decided their own sessions.
The conversation caught fire and there were some passionate discussions and even the formation of the fledgling North America Fringe Festivals Association.
The agenda was “owned” by the participants and the conversation created an impact that still reverberates to this day.
Unconferencing at the Digital and Social Media Leadership Forum
During 2015, we’ve been working with the Digital and Social Media Leadership Forum, conversifying their more traditional format gatherings of over 100 leaders in the digital and social media field. We facilitated their first ever unconference which trended on Twitter in the UK.
Helping Small Business to Grow and Innovate through Purposeful Conversation
Our drop-in action learning process is rooted in conversation and recently won an Excellence Award from the University of Brighton. Known as the DIAL project, we’ve worked with over 300 small businesses and freelancers, bringing them together in a cafe-based conversation process that enables them to exchange knowledge and experience, ask questions of, and challenge each other, identifying purpose and practical actions.
