WEC speaker Misha Glouberman was so wildly popular on Monday that he presented his session, "Unconferences and Open Spaces: Designing Participatory Events to Create Real Connections," again on Tuesday.
Session attendees learned more about how to run an unconference and the benefits of doing so. As part of their education, Glouberman had attendees break into groups of four with people they didn't know and meet each other. He then had them break up those groups and regroup into another group of four strangers. This time, they were asked to discuss what they hoped to get out of WEC.
Afterwards, Glouberman asked anyone if they had a subject they wanted to talk about. One person would suggest a topic, and Glouberman would then ask if anyone else in the room wanted to talk about that too. He'd then group them together. As one attendee said, he is a "conversation matchmaker."
"This is the session I was most looking forward to attending," said Nann Philips, a planner for Dallas HR and the HR Southwest Conference. "I was expecting great ideas, and the one that sticks out the most is that it's okay to give participants the permission to think in unstructured ways. If you just trust them, they'll surprise you with what they come up with."
