This post is dedicated to Colleen Kulikowski in thanks to her post on active/rain about BlogOrlando. There were several comments on Colleen's post about the formate of an "unconference." I wanted to share a couple of lessons that I learned from turning a traditional workshop format into a less formal structure. To me an unconference is like an improvisation versus a three act play. For this type of format it to work the "actors"/presenters" should:
- Be skilled in moderating a discussion
- Have a good knowledge of the subject
- Be open to taking a few risks and able to go with (and enjoy) the flow of the conversation
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at the Healthcare Blogging Summit in Chicago. I joined Elisa Camahort, BlogHer and Carol Krishner, Dollar Philanthropy, in presenting a 2-hour workshop type session on how to develop a blog strategy. However, after attending sessions before ours we realized the participants were not beginners when it came to blogs and social media. In fact, many were writing their own blogs, a few had begun sophisticated communities and everyone knew what RSS was all about. Needless to say, we were in big trouble .. with a Capital T.
What do you do when you know that the material you prepared is not appropriate for the audience? That was the challenge that Carol, Elisa and I faced. Over lunch we quickly revised our approach. Our goal was always to be of service to the people who were attending our session. We agreed to take our cue from social media itself: we would be transparent, honest, authentic and let our passion for the topic come through.
We introduced our session with what we thought we had learned about the participants .. that they were not novices when it came to blogs. They agreed. Then we took a deep breath and told them what we had originally planned .. that our presentation was created to help develop a blog strategy but we felt our materials were, for the most part, too elementary for them. We told them we would make the PowerPoint presentation available on our blogs, however, we felt we needed to change direction.
Then we did something very bloggy .. we asked what the participants wanted to talk about, what they needed to help with their work with blogs and social media. Keep in mind that unlike BlogOrlando which was positioned as an unconference, expectations had been set that The Healthcare Blogging Summit would be a traditional conference.
It was a leap of fate and a leap of trust that all could feel comfortable working for 2-hours in what would amount to a very unstructured environment. Something magical happened. Together we set a new agreed upon course based on the questions and interests that the people in the session presented to us. During our conversation, when it was appropriate we did refer to some of our slides. Topics ranged from a debate about ghost blogging to an extended discussion on how to use Myface to demonstrating Twitter.
Something else happened. We had fun and we learned together. However, without the engagement of the attendees this type of workshop can not succeed. Also, if you are sharing the "stage" with other speakers it's critical that egos be set aside and the focus and conversation be directed towards the outcome of providing information that is of value to the attendees.
Next time you have to develop a training program for your employees give the improv-unconference a try. Let me know how it worked.
Lessons Learned
- Don't be afraid to change direction if what you planned doesn't work or is not appropriate.
- The more you know about your audience the better your can prepare (that information was not available to us).
- Involve participants in the learning process. Stop and ask their opinions let discussion naturally occur.
- It helps if you are working with people who are passionate and knowledgeable about the topic.
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