Join industry insider Marie and the godfather of spontaneous think tanks, Adrian, as we traverse the rich history and dynamic future of professional meetings. Prepare to be whisked back to a time where fax machines beeped and ideas flowed freely on paper, all while peeking into the crystal ball of tomorrow's corporate engagements. Nostalgia meets innovation in this electric conversation that promises to leave you with a fresh perspective on how we connect, collaborate, and consume content across the generational divide.
Feel the pulse of an evolving workplace as we dissect the art of crafting meetings that resonate with everyone from eager Gen Z innovators to seasoned Boomers. Learn the secrets to engaging a diverse workforce and why sometimes, a pen in hand can be as powerful as a screen at your fingertips. With Marie's keen insights and Adrian's pioneering experiences, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone passionate about shaping the future of work, communication, and community in an age where your career path is limited only by your imagination.
Join industry insider Marie and the godfather of spontaneous think tanks, Adrian, as we traverse the rich history and dynamic future of professional meetings. Prepare to be whisked back to a time where fax machines beeped and ideas flowed freely on paper, all while peeking into the crystal ball of tomorrow's corporate engagements. Nostalgia meets innovation in this electric conversation that promises to leave you with a fresh perspective on how we connect, collaborate, and consume content across the generational divide.
Feel the pulse of an evolving workplace as we dissect the art of crafting meetings that resonate with everyone from eager Gen Z innovators to seasoned Boomers. Learn the secrets to engaging a diverse workforce and why sometimes, a pen in hand can be as powerful as a screen at your fingertips. With Marie's keen insights and Adrian's pioneering experiences, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone passionate about shaping the future of work, communication, and community in an age where your career path is limited only by your imagination.
Speaker 1:
Okay, it was so great to have you on and I know that we didn't get to all of your trends, at least Marie, so you're going to have to send them over. We will share them with the EG community and Slack channel and make sure that we can get all of the trends, because that is what people are here for. We want to know what's coming up, we want to know what the industry thinks is happening so that we can prepare, because you know we'll be so prepared, prepared message.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so this next segment that we're working on had. It came from a meme that we saw online. That was just a bunch of old people in a booth giving advice random advice and so I put the meme up old coots giving advice and everybody on my LinkedIn feed was like, oh my gosh, you must do this. So we decided we would invite a boomer, a Gen X and a millennial. We're not going to do any advice at this point, though, but I think what I would like to do is share some stories about what life was like pre-cell phone, what life was like when we used to have to use fax machines to actually get things done, and a little bit of nostalgia today. So I think we have Adrian on the line. Is that right, adrian? So good to see you.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so we like to call Adrian the godfather of the spontaneous think tank, because Adrian was actually the one, from his incredible way of doing participatory meetings, that I knew from 20 years ago and invited him in to our first big unconference and helped us shape what spontaneous think tanks are today. And so, adrian, I just want to first of all, thank you for being in our lives and being in our community and, second, thank you for being here today. I know it's past your bedtime, so thanks for stand up. Oh my god, you're right, this is late.
Speaker 3:
This is late, I agree, and I just want to point out my viewer credentials. There's, right behind me is a whole stack of CDs. Oh, there's an actually a CD player, and I have a fax machine in this office.
Speaker 1:
You do not, I do, but do you have a floppy disk? Oh, I know.
Speaker 3:
There's one in the stack somewhere.
Speaker 1:
That's incredible. Okay, so I have always known you for your participatory meetings, but were you in other types of events, like, did you do trade shows, conferences? What's your background?
Speaker 3:
Well, the background is that I've always been fascinated. I've always wanted, had this feeling. I wanted to when I went to meetings and I was an academic a long time ago and I would go to academic conferences and I hated them because, you know, you didn't meet anybody. You listened to lectures. There were those five minutes of Q&A at the end. I just and so and I was always drawn.
Speaker 3:
I didn't understand the time to create meetings about whatever I was working on. I've done on this is my like my fifth career done a lot of different things and whatever I was doing, I would create meetings for them and they were conventional meetings. So I didn't know anything better until one day I had to create a meeting on a topic that was brand new. No one had ever, we'd never had a conference, there'd never been a conference on it before. It was like there are no experts to invite and come and lecture to us.
Speaker 3:
So what do I do? So I kind of invented this way of well, we need to find out who's here and what they're interested in talking about and what experience they have that other people might find interesting, and then we'll create a, we'll meet, we'll talk about stuff, and that happened in 1992. That was the first time I did that and I you know, and people loved it. That conference it's 30 years old now. It's still going every year, a four day conference. That's completely. The program is completely generated by the participants. When they get there, no one knows what's going to happen and that's been going for 30 years now and then I wrote a book about it.
Speaker 3:
People seem to like it, here we go.
Speaker 1:
Was it always paper? Very tactile, very analog? Is that how it's always been?
Speaker 3:
Well, when we started, you know, I mean the internet was like email. You know, 92, 92, 30 years ago, internet was just coming in, so everything was done on paper. You know evaluations were on paper. We did, we did stuff on sheets of paper. You know, sessions sign up, we came up with the topics and wrote the topic and people wrote down. I yeah, I'd like to go to that one that kind of stuff. It was all analog, you know oh, those days.
Speaker 3:
I have to admit that I still use analog there. You know, I've spent, you know, 30 years doing this now and there's still times, like we did in Austin with your conference at Houta Kimatsu, where analog methods are great. Everyone knows how to use them. There's no tech needed. You know, everyone pretty much knows how to use a pen and write on notes, and then sticking notes on a wall is a great way to, you know, get a good feeling of Everything that everybody wants to talk about or contribute or share and so on. It's very effective. So I still use that stuff sometimes.
Speaker 1:
But you know. Thank you. For the moment, pen and paper are still multi-generational. I'm afraid that it might go away, though. What do you think, nicole You're the youngest one here Do you think that people are gonna get rid of paper and pen?
Speaker 4:
Wow, wait, she's the youngest. Correct on that.
Speaker 2:
No, I think definitely paper pen, and I actually think just my opinion that as we add more tech, as we add AI, as we're I mean, we still are spending you know so much time looking at our screens and phones I still think that that is like it's human nature to not be drawn to technology that makes your life easier.
Speaker 2:
It's human nature to be drawn to each other and to be you know, to write, to be tactile, to do those things, even if you didn't grow up with it. I still think that there there's going to be like almost that's gonna be the new AI one day, or the new old AI kind of thing where people just want to go back, like there's a reason what people want to go outside and they don't want to look at trees on the screen, they want to be in the trees, and so I think that you know those Forms of you know writing and pen and paper. You know there's that. And then I am a big fan of love letters, so I always think that this romantic to do that, so I'm never giving it up on it anyway.
Speaker 4:
You know, actually I I need to be very careful, adrienne's, not go down a rabbit hole with you, because you went to Oxford and you have a PhD in high energy experimental physics. I'm more curious what's the world gonna look like in 20 years with this, with the advent of AI? I'm just kidding, but you know it's funny. I was thinking the other day I, we were in New York City and I was there with, with my two business partners who are younger guys and you know they're on their phones we're having trouble getting a signal there. They were so lost and I was thinking, man, if this was 30 years ago.
Speaker 4:
I'm at the corner of 28th and Lexington and I've got a maps, a Rand McNally maps book Never mind the entire history of the universe you know in my pocket. So I think things are just happening so fast and I think it's a really exciting time To be in business because I think things are happening so quickly and so dynamically. I think the world we live in 20 years from now we won't recognize today. So that's my, my big projection.
Speaker 1:
So, adrienne, what do you think about? You're doing a lot of still multi-generational meetings, and so how are they working right now? Because it's it's one of the only times we've had this many Generations in the workforce together, I think you know, Would they tend to age out and then they don't happen anymore. But this time we're everywhere. We've got the Gen. Z's to boomers, who are all still having to work together. Have you experienced that in live meetings or online?
Speaker 3:
events. You know there are aspects I I don't like the you know Gen X, y, z stuff very much. I mean, you know it's useful in certain ways, but I think the thing to concentrate on, an important thing to concentrate on, is that human beings, most of them, really want to connect and that goes across generations and it goes across, even goes across cultures. I mean people say, oh well, you know, we know stuff work in, you know, in different cultures, and my experience is it does, because underneath all the cultural stuff that's layered on top is this desire to connect and communicate in ways that work and that it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:
You know someone is young at a meeting. You know you've got someone who's been in the field for 40 years, let's say, and someone who comes in who knows something that you know I've never even heard of and I can learn from them and they can learn from me. And that's how the meetings that I try to, that I design and facilitate, work. People discover they're given this structure to discover who else is there, who's valuable and useful to them and who they you are useful and valuable to, as quickly as possible, and then you know you make it as safe as possible for people to do stuff and do what they want and need, and you let them do it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I do think that's completely accurate. That's why we love these types of activities and events where you can get people together for those conversations, because when you look at the old format of events the keynote breakout, expo it is definitely the older crowd that's used to being lectured to that are willing to sit there and listen to the sit and get content, and then the newer crowd is just immediately on their phone, which is extremely disrespectful to the presenter, but also the presenter can't keep their attention, then like what are we going to do here?
Speaker 1:
So, Nicole, you love sitting in a keynote session.
Speaker 2:
Oh, please, that is, if there's a prison, that's it. For me, I can't do it.
Speaker 2:
I have no attention span, I just want to be in the hallway, but I do sometimes take a nugget from the keynotes if I am stuck in there all day, for whatever reason. You know love those quick tips. I want to listen and ingest content in a way, and not because of how old I am, but just like I have ADHD, Like I can't sit in there and just be so focused and take it all in. I just want it in like fireworks right, Hard and fast, right at me, when even books, I don't have to read the whole book. I want the cliff notes of the book and I totally get the whole premise of it and can put it together. But I think that that's. You know. The worst thing to do is sit in a dark ballroom all day when there's just this world and all of the people in the room listening to one person talk at you for eight hours. So if keynotes, if you got to do them fine, 20 minutes tops man, that's it.
Speaker 3:
Well, I think so.
Speaker 1:
your world is video content and I think that you know obviously, the younger generation is much more ready to consume all of their content on their phone, on mobile devices.
Speaker 1:
And the older generation I think we're still seeing. We'll still have it on desktop. I don't really want to watch a whole movie on my phone unless I'm on the plane. I still want it up on a little bit bigger screen. But my dad, I know, is starting. He's not in TikTok yet, but, you know, starting to look at some of the other things and pay attention. My mom will watch Facebook. So how, what kind of content can actually transcend everybody?
Speaker 4:
It's short form content and we found the sweet spot with that. Everyone, regardless of age, is interested in a 15 to 45 second clip of something. However, with that said, there's the opportunity to expand on that to lead into long form. We don't have data on that, so I would just be talking anecdotally, but there's no question that our numbers show regardless, there's no difference in the ages of people that are watching the short form. I think it's in what you do with it and then also thinking about the call to action. Right, if you're creating short form content that's going to have a call to action, who's a gear toward understanding your ideal client, the persona that you're actually talking to. I think that's an opportunity that's missed, especially to since I got into more of the B2B tech space, I found that marketers had these templated personas, that this is the way it is, and I think the more that you really get granular with who you're speaking to, if you really know your audience and who exactly you're trying to address, I think you're more likely to get traction. Okay.
Speaker 1:
Well, I'm interested in advice, so we did originally title this group or this session, old Coots giving advice. So, adrian, when you look at the younger group coming up in the industry, what kind of advice would you give them about what's going to happen, because the world is changing? How would you tell them to buckle up?
Speaker 3:
Well, I think I'd tell them how many where to start. I mean, the one thing maybe they've got this already, but the whole concept of that was common when I went to school was like you go to school and then that's what you're going to be doing the rest of your life A whole concept that, and I think I'm a good example, and maybe rare, I know, but I'm on my fifth now and I think that's the rule rather than the exception these days. In other words, you know what are you doing. You know my younger daughter is in her 30s and she's just finally, you know, decided. This is where I want to go next.
Speaker 3:
You know, and I think that's a very healthy choice it's not the kind of myth is, or certainly used to be, that you would know what you wanted to do early on in life. And you know, we all know these days, that the job that you may end up doing, the thing that you love to do, hasn't maybe even been invented yet. You know, by the time you maybe leave college and so on, or maybe you're gonna create it yourself. I mean, you know we still. I do something that almost no one else in the world does. I specialize in designing and facilitating meetings. There are very few people who do that in the world and so you know, and I don't know that that really existed as a job that you could make money at, you know, 20 years ago. So we create our own positions these days, and there's a lot more. I think it's much more possible to do that if you see where you're going, a place you want to go.
Speaker 3:
The central advice I would always give, you know, when I talk college, tell my students is like figure out at any point in time, figure out what it is you really want to do and even if you think it's impossible, and then see if you can make it happen. You know, oh, I can't do this because I don't have this credential. Well, anyway, I'd love to work with these people and this company. Go to that company, talk to them. See, you know they'll get. If the company is good, they'll get your enthusiasm, they'll get the fact wow, this person would be great. If they don't, then you probably wouldn't want to work there anyway. So I think that advice has worked out very well for me and I think it works out well for a lot of people, you know, I mean it's not following your bliss, but it's following your intuition. Where are you right now? What would you really like to do? And then don't be realistic, but don't let you know. Some kind of artificial stuff get in the way.