Greetings Fellow Facilitators!

The Art of Conference Going

I'm sure most of us have done our share of conferences and as facilitators, I'd love to hear you're thoughts how they might be improved from a facilitation standpoint. This question was inspired by a friend of mine who just returned from a wonderfully inspiring conference in Palm Springs. For the most part, each speaker was full of wisdom and ideas that were astounding about the most vital topics in the world today. So overwhelming.

How many conferences have you been to where, like me, you feel inspired but completely overwhelmed with what to do next?

One speaker, an environmental ecologist from Oxford, made the most profound statement of all, from a facilitator’s point of view. He said, during his speech, “Wow, this conference has many great speakers and with so many provocative ideas. We all go away overwhelmed. Perhaps we should have fewer speakers during one day and spend the other two days forming groups, discussing and figuring out together how we can do something about the issues.” Imagine that…I jumped to my feet and gave him my applause. Of course, everyone else just looked at me and gave him a quiet nod.

Everyone there that I talked to, and I attended with 6 friends, had so many ideas and wanted to discuss them with the others in the audience who also probably had great ideas and experiences. Wouldn't it have been a great step forward to spend some time with everyone there, with facilitator support, to hammer out action items that we could all do individually or in groups after leaving the conference.

How can we, as facilitators, impact the conference circuit and convince the conference developers of the importance of large and small group facilitation? I believe there is as much waste of money sending people to “unfacilitated” conferences as there is in attending unfacilitated meetings.

Please share your ideas on how we facilitators can impact the conference circuit? I'll share the collective responses with all those who contribute.

Thanks very much for your support!

Warmest regards,

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Steve Davis 1.760.375.7384 1.877.768.9016 (fax) steve@FacilitatorU.com; www.FacilitatorU.com Virtual Facilitation Training and Resources......Just in Time, situation-based tools, providing what you need, when you need it.