Months ago I said I spent a week in a U and never wanted to go back.  Click here to read what I wrote then.

But sometimes it’s easier to stick with the set-up that already exists.  Or we need to maximize the space so we compromise our ideals and put people in theatre style.  But what are we giving up when we do that?

I’ve been teaching Event Production at Mount Royal University this semester.  The very first class I got into the classroom early and found myself in a HUGE room and 17 registered for the class.  I think the room would easily hold 60 so we were potentially going to get lost in the room.  I proceeded to move all the desks around until I had a U.  It wasn’t a perfect shape but it was close enough.  The class went well and I liked the interaction.

7 weeks went by and each week I arrived in the classroom with only a few minutes to spare – so I didn’t change the set-up.  I’ve regretted it every week.

I watch the students in each row behave differently.  I’ve noticed that the back row is the most likely to sit on their laptops and not engage.  I know it looks like they are taking notes, but I know other activities are more likely.  The middle row is actually pretty interested, but may fall asleep (it’s an evening class so I try not to take it personally).  The front row is interested and awake.  I like it best when they choose the first row at the start of class and don’t just end up there because they came in late.

ANYWAY – I’m sure there are studies on the rows and what it means, or how to appeal to the different rows.  I could seek them out, but I’d rather go back to avoiding the rows altogether.

Last night I put a U back in place and it was like a different class. Granted, I did have a fabulous guest speaker, but the dynamics of the class changed.  The hierarchy of the rows went away.  The stuff I hate – the attitudes between the rows – went away.  The U equalizes everyone.

It’s worth the effort and the time to put the tables and chairs into the U.  I’ll even suggest that it’s worth the money to pay for the extra space.

I’m cheering for the U!

I’ve been thinking a lot about education, schooling, learning and the differences between those 3 words and how it affects our children and our meetings and events.  We structure many conferences in the same way we went to school as kids.  We have someone lecture at the front of the room and when the speaker timer goes off – the learning is over.  Time for a break, or time for lunch, or time to go home.

In many instances we lack the time to reflect, to discuss and more specifically the time to learn from each other.

So how did I make the leap to a bottle of conditioner?

Well, this morning my conditioner was at the end of its bottle.  And I had to pry off the top and bang the remaining conditioner out onto my hand.

That’s why I think our systems are like conditioner – we give the majority of information freely and easily.  Like the first part of the bottle – it comes out with ease.  But the last bits – the bits that you’ve paid for and you want to get the use out of – those bits require effort.  You can just leave them in the bottle – but what are you wasting when you do that?

What are we leaving behind in the bottle when we don’t push to get that extra bit of information from our experts and from our colleagues?  How much information goes unsaid?  Or even worse, how much goes unlearned?

There are many people out in the world saying our education systems need a revolution – that how we are teaching our kids is not serving them well, and it won’t serve our society well in the future.  And there are many experts in the meetings and events industry saying our formats need a revolution.  We need to seriously look at how we learn and promote the very best efforts to do that – both in the classroom and in our event classrooms.

People come to conferences and meetings to learn – from each other, from experts – and we have a responsibility to make sure they do LEARN and not just LISTEN.  (And I do believe people also come to network and meet others – but we can’t ignore that we learn from each other so how can we turn those networking moments into teaching moments?)

I’m on the board of a preschool for children with Autism (Behaviour Therapy & Learning Centre in case you’re wondering which one it is).  Their strategy is to make every opportunity a teaching moment.  Could we adopt a similar philosophy at events?

What if we bang on the bottom of the conditioner bottle at our events?  What are we leaving behind that is valuable and should be used?