How to create more engaging conferences

Professionals attending conferences or large meetings (hereafter "conferences") often look forward to going because they want to interact with others working in the same field. Even if they are not presenters, attendees contribute to the success of the conference by sharing their experiences, offering different perspectives and asking thoughtful questions. And, they imagine going home feeling energized, excited by new ideas and connected to potential collaborators.

But all too often, conference organizers fail to deliver engagement, based on three assumptions. They assume...

• that what people really want is information, therefore, their highest priority is delivering large amounts of it;

• that personal connections will happen "organically" in the hallway while participants scurry between presentations or try to recover from "information overload"; and

• that networking is easy. They fail to consider that many of us find it very difficult to walk up to complete strangers and start meaningful conversations.

These three assumptions lead to unfortunate results: overwhelm and isolation among the participants. And some attendees will leave conferences early, just to get away and rest. This isn't the energized connection, collaboration and innovation that people want!

The question is, how can conference organizers minimize overwhelm and isolation and foster more active engagement in their conferences?

One step toward engaging conferences

Liberating Structures are a set of simple, practical, and easy-to-use methods designed to facilitate discussions and decision-making

If you want to make it easier for conference attendees to meet others, to share their experiences and to find meaningful opportunities to collaborate, try using Liberating Structures!

According to the Liberating Structures website, Liberating Structures are a set of simple, practical, and easy-to-use methods designed to facilitate discussions and decision-making in groups of all sizes.

Liberating Structures can help all conference attendees, not just the confident extroverts, to contribute to the success of the conference. They help participants meet one another, make sense of what they are learning and to pick next steps for themselves.

In most cases, conference planners are unfamiliar with Liberating Structures. And, they have concerns (dare we say "resistance"?) about using them. Maybe you do, too!

Q and A about using Liberating Structures in conferences

One set of conference planners I served had a lot of concerns about Liberating Structures. Here's how I answered their questions:

1. The activities you are suggesting have goofy names. Aren't they just silly games? This is a serious conference. We don't want silly games.

Well, yes, it's true, the names of Liberating Structures -- like "1-2-4-all," "Wicked Questions," "15% solutions" and "TRIZ" -- certainly are a little goofy.

However, while Liberating Structures may have silly names, they are not "silly games." They are seriously purposeful activities that involve everyone. They are effective, efficient, and engaging. They can also be quite fun.  And fun is engaging.  

2. Our people like simplicity. These activities look complicated. You are going to confuse people. 

These activities have been field-tested and honed through time. They are actually easy to learn and lead, as long as there is one person at each table who knows what to do.

I will write up clear step-by-step instructions. We (you, me and table guides) will talk through and practice the activities beforehand, so we all know what to do.

3. The activities you are suggesting look like a lot of small group activities. But there are over 100 people coming to our conference. We don't believe the activities can work with big groups. 

Liberating Structures have been used in groups large and small for decades.  Some Liberating Structures can work very well in large groups! Others deliberately split large groups out into multiple small groups who work on the same question simultaneously. The results of the small group discussions can be efficiently shared with the large group, if you want to do that.

Not only is using small groups time-efficient, it also helps each person to actively contribute their wisdom to the discussion at hand. Large group discussions just don't do that!

4. Prove it. When have you used them with large groups?

Well, I designed breakout group activities (based loosely on 1-2-4-all) and large group activities (25-10 Crowdsourcing) for a national workshop in 2017, to gather "lessons learned" from the Ebola outbreak of 2014. We had only 1 day and a very diverse group of about 100 participants. The participants gave their input and the entire group reached general agreement on what ought to be done before the next major disease outbreak. The high level of group input is reflected in the final report. 

I have also led liberating structures in large meetings of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Wisconsin Healthcare for a Healthy Environment, and at conferences such as AORN (Assoc of Operating Room Nurses), Practice Green Health, and the Wisconsin Integrated Resource Management Conference (WIRMC), among others.   

5. In one place in your proposed agenda, you are only allowing 20 minutes to make a decision. We doubt that you can get anything done in so little time, let alone make a decision. 

I didn't believe it either, until I experienced the Liberating Structure 1-2-4-All for the first time. The leader promised we would make a decision in 15 minutes. "Impossible! Not with this group!" I thought. But he proved me wrong. And I've seen it happen dozens of times since then in my own meetings. That's why I keep using them! 

Once groups use 1-2-4-all a few times, they become very efficient at focusing on making the decision and the process fades into the background. People leave feeling energized and empowered to implement the group's decision, because they all contributed to it. That eliminates delays later.

6. These activities also seem to be pretty loose. How do you keep things under control?  

Actually, we do exercise control, but only of the structure (how we work -- the groupings, timing, and questions). We allow and encourage everyone else to share control of the content and results (what happens). 

And, ultimately, leaders can't really control the outcome of a conference, and if they did, why meet in the first place? We can only guide the outcome. We provide just enough structure to help the participants to share their ideas and opinions, to actively collaborate with one another, to own their decisions. As a result, they will willingly implement what they decide to do without delay. In contrast, when one or a few people try to control or impose an outcome, the rest will resist implementing it, because they don't feel heard, included or valued.

7. How can we know that Liberating Structures really work?

Experience is the best teacher.  In one of your internal meetings. I'd be happy to help you plan an LS experiment on any topic you choose! How about using one to brainstorm other ways to build engagement in your conference?

If you feel a little bolder, we might use them in an online "mixer" a week before the conference, for those registants who want to start networking early. 

In lieu of direct experience, you could watch one or both of these short videos about them. The first video explains why Liberating Structures work, the second shares the three Liberating Structures that I use most often. Or, you can review some of the many field stories on the Liberating Structures website.

In the end, these conference planners did agree to try a few Liberating Structures at their conference. Although one didn't land well with the participants (they wanted to discuss things in their usual long-winded way), the other structures DID work. The attendees appreciated being invited into active participation, and the conference planners saw a marked difference in engagement from the start, compared to their typical conferences.

Still on the fence? Follow the suggestions in question 7 above. Feel free to contact me (exits to the Improve Your Meetings website) to talk through how you might try them for the first time.

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For more suggestions for making professional conferences engaging, see the guest editorial I wrote for Ground Water magazine.

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Photo Credit: Sanjeri from Getty Images Signature on Canva Pro