UnConferencing: Un for All and All for Un

While I’ve spoken at dozens of conventional conferences, I’ve always felt that the format – rows of chairs in old-fashioned classroom-style, with “teacher” or a panel of “experts” up front – is quite inadequate, rarely releasing the potential in the room.

So much more can be achieved by radical transformation. I first started experimenting with all this some twenty years ago. Since that time I’ve tried all sorts of different processes and formats, and have evolved a flexible approach that deals with many of the main issues involved in the trad format. Most recently I ran two UnConferences in Manila.

The first was a meeting of the top 350 managers at Nestlé Philippines (one of the largest and most successful companies in the country) and the second at a Brand Renovation masterclass for some 60 senior managers from diverse backgrounds (blogpost 14 November 2011).

A while ago, I wrote another post (31 August 2011) about the first Big City Brainstorm we ran at City University London to launch the Centre for Creativity.

And in January I’ll be running an UnConferencing session within the Association of British Orchestra’s annual conference.

There are a number of important principles involved:

• Communication ceases to be top-down and token Q and A.

• There’s a minimum of presentation and a maximum of dialogue.

• The dialogue (whether brainstorming, problem-solving, debating issues, visioning, planning or whatever) moves from the podium to the body of the room.

• The whole thing needs continuous and skilful facilitation.

• The room can be set up in various ways. I have come to prefer either small circles of chairs or round tables.

• Each circle needs a flip chart, so that ideas/thoughts can be captured immediately.

• It’s important to set up some groundrules for working together. These include the usual stuff – no judgements, anything goes, headline first, speak for yourself and so on.

• I like to work with the maximum of human contact and the minimum of technology, but with groups of 50 or more, the facilitator will need a throat-mike.

• Often, when getting reports back from the floor, I like to have the headlines come up on a big screen at the front – so a skilled “technographer” is needed for this.

Is your organisation still stuck with the teacher/class model? What’s your experience of UnConferencing?

Truth and Reconciliation in the City

When we launched the Centre for Creativity at City University London we held a “Big City Brainstorm” which pulled together a very diverse group of clever people – including several from the financial community in the City of London.

We were searching for ways to address issues emerging from the global financial melt-down and in particular the “addictive behaviour” (as one of our participants, a psychiatrist, put it) of people in the banks so badly hit.

There were a number of interesting and exciting ideas put forward, prominent amongst them the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission along the lines of post-apartheid South Africa.

On the day, there seemed to be quite a groundswell in favour of the concept. But in the days following, it seemed as though all the City of London folk had had second thoughts.

Apparently we just didn’t understand…

I still think it could be enormously helpful. How about you?

Anyway, the video about it all was a pleasure to make. See what you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N83vCg7q36c