#sddt – Page 3 – The Consulting Artist

Stop Doing Dumb Things – In Pictures

At around 5.30 am on Wednesday morning I woke up and prepared to head off to Stop Doing Dumb Things – the unconference. Today was to be a rare, and for many a first chance, for HR and customer service professionals to come together and help strengthen the links between the employee and customer experience.

In my sleepy state I burned the toast to a frazzle so with my first dumb thing out of the way I headed off into the dark on an empty stomach. Thankfully when I arrived in Vauxhall The Madeira Café was open and I had double egg on toast with bacon. It was delicious.

There’s already loads of content from the event online and I want to say a huge thank you to Martin Couzins for capturing so many pictures, words, interviews and songs and getting them online so quickly. Leonie, one of our guests, talked about different learning styles and how different people communicate in different ways. One size does not fit all. There will be more content and feedback to follow over the next days and weeks, for now I wanted to share with you one learning style, the artwork that Tim Casswell and his team created for us on the day. I’ve included the briefest of descriptions below each picture and you can listen to Tim’s interpretation of this here

This first picture is about setting the scene for the day, gathering people’s expectations.

SDDT Frame Two — Distilling words and scribbles and ideas as the day began to emerge

We ran a World Café to help set the day up. Many ideas and thoughts and feelings were expressed. We’re here to try something different. Fear and trust and freedom to express and a whole bunch of other things caught our eyes, hearts and minds.

SDDT Frame Three — Feedback from more detailed conversations

After the World Café people split up and talked about things in more detail. Communication, Value and measurement, Fear and trust, What and why of engagement, What can I do?

After lunch we spoke about, what works? We could and maybe should have teed this up in the run in to the event. By that I mean just asked guests to think about when and where they’ve seen good stuff going on. The importance of lunching together, to bond and share ideas came up and whenever possible, the importance of face to face dialogue. And when not possible, try skype, or video. And when not possible try the telephone. Use email as a last resort. We struggled to get lots of examples – I think we need to review and come back to this and gently develop it further.

This last picture was drawn rapidly at the end of the day. Subjects were suggested and Tim put them together in the moment. Some instant reflections on a challenging, useful, enjoyable and emotional day.

Huge thanks to everyone who encouraged, supported, attended, co-created and tweeted the day along. I feel so fortunate and sincerely humbled and motivated to know you.

There will be more to follow including feedback from guests, and more content summaries. For now – any observations and thoughts based on what you see here would as always be appreciated.

What do I get?

Two things fascinate me about the growing unconference movement. The first is the energy, the excitement and value they create for the participants, the guests, and the second is the uncertainty with which many people continue to approach them.

I’ve been to loads of conferences, a few very good ones, and a growing number of unconferences. There are two unconferences coming up which I’m taking part in, ConnectingHR on October 20^th and Stop Doing Dumb Things on November 23^rd, and I want to tell you about what I get from these events in the hope it may encourage a few folks sitting on the fence to join in.

Method

In an unconference I’m able to experience and practice many different methods of sharing information. These include World Café, pecha kucha and the fishbowl method. All of these are great methods for learning and sharing and are perfectly, simply and cheaply transferrable to the workplace. At the last ConnectingHR I was privileged to run a world café session and the feedback was great. Folks found it enjoyable as a way of meeting many other people, and useful as a way of accelerating and increasing learning. Most conferences are just not laid out and set up to give you this great interaction and great learning.

Meet

At most conferences you arrive, take pot luck and sit next to someone you hope will be interesting, or stick with a colleague for safety. Many people who attend conferences say the best bits are the conversations they have with people in the gaps. Guests flow around and through an unconference in a way that guarantees you will meet many people. This increases your chance of finding interesting folks and in the event that your pot luck shot is a bit off target, it also gives you the opportunity to take aim and have another go, without awkwardness.

Move

At most conferences you are presented at. There is often just one thing happening and you feel obliged to sit and listen, well you’ve paid a lot of money haven’t you. Unconferences give you choices and the rule of two feet applies. If you find a session is not meeting your needs or you’ve learned what you want from it – go and join another. This is not just OK, it’s encouraged.

Co-create

Most conferences show you case studies, and some of these can be useful. At an unconference you get the chance to bring your own organisational challenges and opportunities and discuss them with peers and other experienced folks and find ideas and methods that are really focussed around your needs.

Collaborate

People I meet at unconferences fascinate me. Many have gone on to become friends and trusted advisors. Some have given me valuable work. Valuable in that it is interesting, useful and fun. Unconferences create lasting value.

I’m excited about meeting familiar and new faces at both ConnectingHR and Stop Doing Dumb Things, having great conversations, learning stuff, making work better and building even better relationships. I encourage you to join in, I’m confident you’ll be pleased you did.

What do I get? Take it away boys…

The biggest conversations

What’s a good way to start to make something happen? Conversations work for me. Yes, we could have a conversation, but what if there’s say, over 80 of us together in one room? Surely that could never work…

Yes. It. Can.

If you’ve never used it before, the World Café method is a fantastic flexible way to allow great big conversations to happen. Small groups gather and converse at tables, discussing the important questions. The groups are encouraged to note down their conversations, insights, and doodles on paper tablecloths. Every ten minutes or so the group briefly convenes to capture the essence of the conversation before separating into new groups and continuing.

As people share insights between the tables a sense of the whole becomes more accessible. World café can be a great way to:

Clarify purpose and strategic intent

Explore critical issues and questions

Engage all key stakeholders

Skillfully use collaborative social technologies

Guide collective intelligence toward effective action

And perhaps most importantly, a World Café is a great way to meet and get to know people.

At the 2012 Stop Doing Dumb Things unconference on June 27th 2012 you will once again have the chance to play with the World Café method. It’s a lively and involving way of sharing and we hope that all the unconference guests will have a lot of fun playing.

I’m really looking forward to the conversation, I hope you are too?