Inside the Delegate’s Head: How to Help Your Clients Increase the “Mental Value” of Their Meetings 48th ICCA Congress & Exhibition Florence, Italy, November 9, 2009, 4:30-6:00PM Ib Ravn, Ph.D., Associate Professor Aarhus University, Denmark,

1. My Points Today The classical meeting or conference makes delegates listen passively to presentations In the knowledge society, people want to be active and make connections and create new projects together The venue must help delegates do this. – In physical space: places to meet and develop ideas – In facilitated space: processes where people digest the input

2. The Classical Meeting or Conference (Laurentius de Voltolina: ”Henricus de Alemannia Before his Students”, late 14th c.)

3.Lessons from Psychology and Learning Science about Meeting Participation Presentations are fine. But: they should be brief, concise, provocative, narrative, personal Involvement: Learners must be active now: Opportunities to think, talk and use hands and bodies. Use it or lose it. Interpretation: They must be given opportunities to see the input in the light of their own past experience. Construction: They must apply the input to their future work The Principle of the 500 experts: Use other delegates as resources. Help your delegates meet and interact.

4.What You Can Do: Physical Space: The Meeting Room Drop the big round tables. You can’t talk across them. Five-person rectangles instead. Quarter-circular theater seating, so people can see each other. Chairs in triads – helps people say hello before presentations. Set out fewer chairs. Squeezes people together. ”Wow, this must be good!” Have stacked chairs ready. Room to stand up and mingle during the session.

5. What You Can Do: Physical Space: Elsewhere Chairs in lobby for casual encounters. Upright. Trios, snake. Bar the previous evening. Early arrivers. Host makes intros Fixed conference bar. Dedicated corner in the hotel bar. A long bar for stand-up socializing. No-chair zone. A stretch-your-legs zone at formal dinners. Meet new people Learning groups of seven meet 5-6 PM under sign in lobby Go eat with your sister learning group. 14 or 21 people in town Good-bye zone for the last half-hour, with a smoothie

6. What Did You Find Inspiring? Write down a couple of points in silence (2 minutes) Share them with your neighbor (6-7 minutes) Let’s hear some of them, and your questions and comments

7. What You Can Do: Facilitated Space Meet people. Initial hellos creates safe learning environment Short presentation, or break it in two, and stick in involvement Buzz dyads (talk to your neighbor): Digest the input Silent reflection: Write down a few thoughts Constructive opening question: What inspired you? Pluck inspirations, so as to inspire others. Then Q and A Delegate construction in triads: What will you do with this? (refer to slide 3: Involvement, interpretation, construction)

8. What Will You Do With This Back Home? Reflect in silence and write down: ”Two actions I will take as a result of this session” (2 minutes) Get up and find two strangers A tells B and C about his planned actions B and C each points to a good thing that will flow from A’s projected actions Rotate. 15 minutes for the three of you.

9. Resources: Facilitation and Learning Meetings Our research group ”Facilitating knowledge processes”:  English The Learning Meeting Module, a web-based tool: Steen Elsborg and Ib Ravn: Learning Meetings and Conferences in Practice. People’s Press, 2007, 89 pp. Papers at  Publications: Ib Ravn and Steen Elsborg: Creating learning at conferences through participant involvement (25 pp. scholarly paper) Ib Ravn: The learning conference, Journal of European Industrial Training, 33, , 2007 (12 pp. paper)