Idea Swaps and Information Exchange ...
We had a great session yesterday, extending the "idea swap" structure we regularly use in the Greater Washington Network to Annual. In contrast to our normal sessions back at headquarters or the Marriott learning center in the Reagan Building (depending on whatever is available that day), we had the opportunity to meet outside, overlooking the bay and the Embarcadero. In addition to our table on marketing, other tables covered technology, membership, communications, other key disciplines. To me one leading indicator of a good session is how many people vote with their feet and I think we lost one person out of perhaps 60 (including stragglers). It was great to see such a good turnout and to have a great opportunity for give and take that is often missing in the sessions themselves. It made me think of the session that Lori Ropa, Sue Bowman & Christy Jones did on Sunday and probably many of your experiences as well--once we get started with the interactive, roundtable portion, it's hard to get us to start. With the Idea Swap format the programming begins and ends with facilitated discussion--everyone at our table came armed with at least 2-3 questions and they left with them answered to at least some degree.
Given the fact that our discussions ran the entire session length and then some, I wonder if we shouldn't have more programming in the form of roundtables to supplement the amazing range of concurrent sessions that feature traditional podium speakers. The interactive roundtable format certainly works for those of us who belong to ASAE in the DC area, and it works well for some of the state societies that I know.
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Comments
Hey Kevin,
As you know I attend a ton of Idea Swaps and also have facilitated a number of Marketing and Membership Swaps in the DC area. I find they are a fantastic way to share information, meet people and form relationships. I like them so much in fact that in a way Karen Bresson, for Society of Actuaries, Barry Pilson of American for the Arts and I twisted the idea a little but used the user content generation model for our session yesterday called Creating a "Sales" Culture in your organization.
As Barry, Karen and I talked about how we were going to make it interactive we kept coming back to let's not just stand up here and speak at attendees but have everyone share their expertise. What we ended up doing was putting together three different scenarios. Each scenario reflected an organization in a different place when it come to having a truly integrated "sales" (meaning selling products, services, membership, etc) approach in their organization. The table was set up so that almost all attendees were at tables of 10. We then assigned a scenario to each table and asked them to brainstorm questions they would ask, actions they would take, etc, etc if they were in that situation.
After about 25 minutes we stopped the conversation and asked everyone to report back out on what their group discussed. The ideas and questions we got back were incredible. Karen was nice enough to write them all down and we are going to put them up on the Annual Meeting website so that everyone can see what 100 association minds came up with in 75 minutes.
I will be honest and say that the program did have a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out. That said I think the concept is really cool and agree with you that we should be considering doing more of this type of thing in the future.
Posted by: Scott Oser (Scott Oser Associates) | August 19, 2008 11:24 PM