There is a great discussion about connectivity on our blog in which David Basler asks, “Are you designing connectivity, or just planning a meeting?”

If you follow any of my blog postings (hi Mom!), then you know I’m very interested in the inner workings of group gatherings. 

Basler writes, “It will take a combination of art, science and magic to be leaders in our field, but with that recipe we will be creating the best kind of meeting interaction—the kind in which humans truly experience and learn from each other and take away relationships that keep the connection going long after the meeting’s close.”

For now, I’d like to focus on the science part of his statement and give some insight into states of being when people meet.

Laura L. Carstensen, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Stanford University, published a paper in 2006 titled “The Influence of a Sense of Time on Human Development.” In the paper, Carstensen explained that “the subjective sense of a future time plays an essential role in human motivation.”

According to her studies, when time is constrained, a person’s motivation priorities focus on emotional states rather than knowledge gathering.

“When time is perceived as open-ended, goals that become most highly prioritized are most likely to be those that are preparatory, focused on gathering information, on experiencing novelty, and on expanding breadth of knowledge,” Carstensen wrote. “When time is perceived as constrained, the most salient goals will be those that can be realized in the short-term, sometimes in their very pursuit. Under such conditions, goals tend to emphasize feeling states, particularly regulating emotional states to optimize psychological well-being.”

The feeling to connect on an emotional state cuts across all ages.

“Young or old, when people perceive time as finite, they attach greater importance to finding emotional meaning and satisfaction from life and invest fewer resources into gathering information and expanding horizons,” Carstensen wrote.

Most meetings last two-to-three days. Agree? If so, then it makes sense that people will want to meet their emotional needs more than their knowledge needs, because they’re under a time constraint. That’s why we see so many cliques at conferences. That’s why networking events turn into reacquainting clubs. In fact, you see this more so with older attendees than younger.

“Older people were observed to have smaller social networks, to be drawn less than younger people to novelty, and to reduce their spheres of interest; at the same time, however, they were as happy as (if not happier than) younger people,” Carstensen wrote. “This makes sense if motivational changes with age lead people to place priority on deepening existing relationships and developing expertise in already satisfying areas of life.”

Carstensen reaffirms, though, that any differences are not due to age, but to future time perception.

"...endings need not be related to old age or impending death," Carstensen wrote. "They need simply to limit time horizons."

Knowing this—that limited time increases a need for emotional connection—how would you design a meeting? What kind of sessions would you plan? How would you design networking events? How would you control time to your advantage?

Music is not only able to affect your mood--listening to particularly happy or sad music can even change the way we perceive the world, according to researchers from the University of Groningen in the academic journal PLoS ONE.

Music and mood are closely interrelated; listening to a sad or happy song on the radio can make you feel more sad or happy. However, such mood changes not only affect how you feel, they also change your perception. For example, people will recognize happy faces if they are feeling happy themselves.

A new study by researcher Jacob Jolij and student Maaike Meurs of the psychology department of the University of Groningen shows that music has an even more dramatic effect on perception: even if there is nothing to see, people sometimes still see happy faces when they are listening to happy music and sad faces when they are listening to sad music.

Jolij and Meurs had their test subjects perform a task in which they had to identify happy and sad smileys while listening to happy or sad music. Music turned out to have a great influence on what the subjects saw: smileys that matched the music were identified much more accurately. And even when no smiley at all was shown, the subjects often thought they recognized a happy smiley when listening to happy music and a sad one when listening to sad music.

The latter finding is particularly interesting according to the researchers.  

"Seeing things that are not there is the result of top-down processes in the brain," Jolij said. "Conscious perception is largely based on these top-down processes: your brain continuously compares the information that comes in through your eyes with what it expects on the basis of what you know about the world. The final result of this comparison process is what we eventually experience as reality. Our research results suggest that the brain builds up expectations not just on the basis of experience but on your mood as well."

This is something to remember when choosing music for your next event.

International trade show EIBTM has announced its gold sponsorship of Project Meeting Architecture, which will research, shape, create and promote education and resources for future meeting architects. The project will work with representatives from relevant sciences, the meeting industry and existing professions that support Meeting Architecture principles. 

EIBTM has provided seed funding to set up Project Meeting Architecture and will host the first annual board meeting this fall at the trade show in Barcelona. Committee members include Marge Anderson, Terri Breining, Elling Hamso, Tyra Hilliard, Christian Mutschlechner, Roger Tondeur and Maarten Vanneste. The term Meeting Architecture was first used in the 2008 book Meeting Architecture, a Manifesto by Vanneste, which later developed into The Meeting Architecture Manifesto through a collaborative effort of 40 meeting industry opinion leaders in Europe and North America.