A Meeting Format that Unleashes Attendee Brainpower

C&I requires small-group conversations every 15 minutes, keeping attendees focused and learning more. "Conversations & Input" eases presenter pressure, gets all attendees involved, and deepens learning. We’re all quite familiar with the Q&A portion of a meeting session: The final few minutes where the audience has its chance to drill down a bit with the presenter. But one participant asking a question to a presenter is the smallest form of interaction imaginable. What about all the other participants? They are simply listening. This means that, at best, three to five percent of the audience becomes actively engaged in that session. With a format called conversations & input (C&I), though, event organizers can radically improve audience activation and interaction, and deepen learning by orders of magnitude. What Is C&I? There’s more than one way to do it, but let’s start with the basic version. Set the room so that groups of six to eight people are around tables, or allow classroom-style seating to be moved to form a number of small semi-circles. After 15 minutes of presentation, the presenter pauses to activate the audience by introducing a conversation topic. It can be a question that always works: “What have you just learned?” or “What did you find interesting?” or “What elements can be applied to your work?” Of course, a more focused or specific question can be introduced, using a text slide in the presentation that remains on screen for the period of conversation. Next, the presenter tells participants that they have a specific amount of time (usually between five and eight minutes) to discuss the question in their group. As a result, several opinions and perspectives can move the conversation in any number of directions. After the period of small-group conversation, the presenter asks participants to conclude and then […]

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