Like salt in a recipe… participant engagement is everything!
Quick, tell me the first thing that pops into your head when I say, “You have an opportunity to facilitate a session on the topic of facilitating sessions at a virtual conference.”
What areas immediately come to mind?
Logistics
Number of people, length of session, time of day/time zones, platforms and apps, tech partner, end-of-event survey
Content
Philosophy underlying personal practice, the universe of possible topics to address, resources to share
Processes
Dependent on: group size, platform, participant knowledge with platforms and apps, familiarity with each other
Personal expertise
Philosophy re: facilitation, knowledge of models and methods, strengths and preferences re: content and processes — including participants’ autonomy, methods for tracking participant engagement (with the understanding of the impact of differences re: communication styles and learning preferences and differences on participation), personal need/desire for knowledge about an understanding of participants learning.
Setting
Conference session not participants’ own work environment (which might run the gamut from consultant to corporate) which may impact participant commitment and engagement
Participants
Range of knowledge of the topic, background (academic and experience in the field), ages, races, genders, cultures, and classes, (i.e., the reality of power dynamics in the room re: areas of DEI), degree of interest in the topic, and accountability
Where do you begin?
Maybe it’s not so much about where you begin, because all of these factors are important (and it’s not an exhaustive list, of course, there are more factors and variables). Perhaps, it’s more about your priorities and how you effectively integrate these different areas to create stellar experiences.
What’s your vision?
And, what is a stellar experience? I believe there’s not one kind of stellar experience because of all the variables listed. The creation of facilitation is both an art and science from my perspective, and every experience is different! I will say though, as I wrote about on LinkedIn earlier this week, I believe that participant engagement is like the salt in all my recipes—the essential ingredient!
Just this week, Karina Antons, Charles-Louis de Maere, and Yasmine Corda and I discussed a few of these variables during the bikablo Meet up on the subject of autonomy in facilitated meetings. Of course, we wanted people to not only discuss the topic of autonomy but also to experience it. Participants had the opportunity to experience degrees of autonomy within the two breakout sessions and in the larger group. our 90 minutes together flew by and we just scratched the surface of these topics. We will be continuing the conversation in a few months with more ideas and methods to share. I hope you’ll join us. You can sign up for bikablo Meetups here!