Make It Magic

Joan Eisenstodt, Rebel and Pioneer

Meetings are not inventive. In most cases, they look, feel and are delivered as they always have been. I, for one, get bored at most meetings. Given the opportunity to change anything now and for the future, I’d wave my magic wand and…

1. Make it all more visual: art on walls, sculpture in hallways, places to create art for the spontaneity of creating and using the right side of our brains. Invest in community and have community artists. Have items for sale for people who want a bit of the local flavor.

2. Add water and light in places that allow participants to relax. This means redesign of the traditional buildings we use for hotels. An article in the Sept. 19, 2011, issue of The New Yorker, “Laboratory Conditions,” gives insights into how design can change.

3. Use music, appropriate and thoughtful, designed to stimulate thinking and relaxation. Play is a bit of art, too. It’s the ability to use different parts of our bodies and brains, and to incorporate creativity differently into what we do. If a game of golf at a meeting is OK, then different play can be. And it can be created to accommodate all.

4. Create seating that’s not too low or too high—and in places convenient for conversations that bubble up when people gather.

5. Encourage intentionally created community and spontaneously created community encouraged by the venue and organizers, who may be the community themselves. (We’ve seen it happen with Tweetups. We’ll see it continue to happen and we’ll broaden the access to anyone without prejudice or membership.)

6. Provide more resources, outside the usual. That is, access to different thinking and the people who do it. This is an easy one; in every venue and virtually, there are people who are subject experts or subject-knowledgeable who want to share ideas.

7. Include reflection time without overcrowded agendas. No one needs that “one more” session or speaker no matter who they are. Having time to reflect, alone or with others (while seated near light and water in appropriate seating) allows us to regroup after filling our heads.

8. Offer experiences as part of the meeting that are designed to fill our heads differently. For example, I’d like to have an art tour at the D.C. convention center or at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia if I’m in those buildings for other purposes.

And for a start—because my magic wand is not that powerful—I’d immediately add the following:

1. Audience-centric room sets a la Paul Radde (thrival.com). Why, after all these years, are we still seated in the same bad chairs  in the same straight rows at the same draped tables? Let’s move stuff around and open it up. Let’s have spaces that allow participants to move and flex and write and talk and listen and learn.

2. Awareness about those who attend meetings and their needs: not because it’s PC, but because it is empathetic and appropriate. We’re all different and we learn from each other.

3. Comfort, defined however each of us wants to define it. My comfort includes availability of appropriate seating; bio-needs met including foods and beverages available throughout and not only from 10 to 10:30, at lunch and from 3 to 3:30; adequate restrooms that are near the space used; lighting that allows me to see; sound that allows me to hear; and signs and badges that are the right size to read.

4. Service from the venue and vendors and the meeting organizers from the minute I arrive until I leave. For example, I loved the story in The New York Times about the Occupy Wall Street protestors ordering pizzas. Who knew that protests could be so organized?

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have more spontaneous meetings?

> Return to the “The Challenge of Change”

Joan Eisenstodt is a highly respected hospitality and meetings industry trainer, facilitator and consultant. She is the chief strategist of Eisenstodt Associates LLC, which provides clients with planning and management support for conferences, seminars and conventions. She has a passion for politics and social justice.