On using breakout rooms, we’ve tried all variations in different events. And as I think you’d expect, the more complicated the configuration, the more important is having active facilitation, ideally in both the online and f2f spaces.

On the blended sessions, your second point, we were experimenting with different Liberating Structures, in that case I think it was TRIZ, followed by Troika consulting. So the activity format meant people and a ‘script’ for conversations, which worked well. We used the Adobe breakout rooms for small groups (some online totally, one blended) and then everyone online came into the main Adobe Room to join the whole f2f group (at ILRI there are large, smart boards, with cameras, which make the interaction between f2f & online immediate and powerful.

I really like your observation about online people staying more in touch since their connection is online from the start. And the connection online can be surprisingly – to me – intense, even intimate. My notes from the a session that used ‘Heard, Seen Respected’ from the LS toolkit were:
– worked well in parallel; those online using chat found the conversations quickly went deep: something about the uncluttered nature of online chat?
o Maybe it echoes the surprising intimacy of talking to someone in the dark?
o Would be interesting to compare the experience of the two formats in the same meeting, especially in terms of agendas or experiences which some people share and others don’t, for example, having people in a f2f meeting who are plotting something, or united in their sceptical or hostile reaction to the meeting and who communicate by the odd glance or raised eyebrow. The complications of the interaction are the same online or in a blended meeting, but the connection between the small group is less visible to others while the use of text back-channels makes the plotting or joking easier and quicker, and more personal?

Pete

Thanks, Pete.

There are a couple of operational things in your blogpost (http://bit.ly/1Fj0LFH) that I wanted to follow up on.

When you say you used breakout rooms in Adobe Connect – was that just online folk in a breakout room among themselves, or was it online and face-to-face folk?

Do you mind saying more about “A blended session with activities in parallel on site and with a fully blended group, with two people from Addis joining three online participants into Adobe.” What was the activity and how did you bring the conversations together?

You also mention something that I forgot to put in the post. Normally we do all blended f2f and online, but sometimes online folk prefer to simply talk to other online folk. And, interestingly, the online people in our BEtreat workshops tend to stay in touch and give each other support long after the workshop more than those who participated online. It’s as if that online experience a) creates a bond between them and b) creates an *online* relationship that is easier to sustain once the face-to-face event is over. The relationship of face-toface people has been formed face-toface and is not so easy to transfer online.

In related way, people commenting on text chat while webinars are going on – or Twitter or WhatsAp has the same kind of democratising effect as a Twitter wall during a panel conversation or presentation. Suddenly people ‘presenting’ have v.rapid feedback, while they are talking, rather than waiting for questions

Hello, Sunny

Yes, we have some big goals for the meetings. Each day we focus on a specific discipline of social learning leadership and on someone’s project. They engage us in thinking through a specific challenge they are facing in practice.

We hold BEtreat workshops every year, which has grown into a small organic community. Its only members are alumni of the workshops.

Hope that helps.

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