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Round 3: Reeling in Unreality. A Texan Architect, a Dutch Journalist, and a Michigander Lawyer walk into a bar, and proceed to talk about what’s fake and what’s real. The interaction between them, with us, and among participants will offer multiple perspectives on authenticity, fakery, and the possibilities or impossibilities of escaping it. Sharing their perspectives are: Michael Benedikt, Tracy Metz, and William Ian Miller.
Round 2: Conversing About Conversation. This second round of two authors could have been called, alternatively, “Collaborating on Collaboration” or “A Dialogue on Dialogue” or “Exploring Exploration” or any cross-combination thereof. The interaction between this pair of group-dynamic experts will communicate the essence of connected, coordinated, cooperative, and collaborative conversations. The two do not know each other; we’re throwing them together because, well, how can they not get along? The aim is to address real work and real results in the business workplace. Collaborating together are Mary E. Boone and Tom McGehee.
Round 1: Society and Authenticity. For our final round, we explore the broader implications of Authenticity as a modern-day sensibility on the dominant social institutions of our times, namely government, education, non-profits, and church. Today, many people detect phoniness in our politicians, sense a certain inanity in our schools and universities, see the futility of many not-for-profit charities, and witness turmoil and scandal between and within religions. Amidst all this fakeness, people thirst for the real. In this space, one author stands out in our mind as foremost in offering truly independent thinking and analysis, to the point of courageously alienating social critics of all stripes: Dinesh D’Souza.
Round 0: What’s On Your Mind? In each of the first three rounds the two of us will conduct focused interviews with these authors. In the final round, all eight authors (including ourselves) will scatter to eight individual stations around the room for more intimate, small-group discussions that explore whatever’s on your mind in reaction to the first three rounds. Participants may freely flow to authors as they see fit, with whom they see fit, to discuss what they see fit, for as long as they see fit. These eight clusters of conversations will undoubtedly fluctuate in size and intensity; small groups might suddenly grow big while large groups may dwindle in size, all depending on where these discussions drive participants to walk with their feet and speak their mind. This is part of the thinkAbout approach – you get to go where you get the most from the discussion.
DAY ONE P.M. – Stack Attack!
With books as the instigation, everyone will break out into small teams to come up with an Experience Economy-related topic to investigate together and set off through the library to gather intelligence. Teams will have access to books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and other information resources, as well as library staff, most of our authors – including dedicated time with the two of us – and, most importantly, access to each other. We will, of course, integrate our usual tricks to help trigger the exploration. After a respite for dinner, the focus will shift to generating output, with time spent developing materials to present what each team has discovered. Understand though, we don’t want the teams to just write down their conclusions – merely an information service – but rather create an experience for their fellow participants that may very well transform each other’s thinking. To accomplish this, we will be providing a kit of wide-ranging contents to ensure your documentation and renditions of it might become more sensory, dimensional, and dramatic. The most important ingredient, of course, will be participant creativity!
What Day One A.M. is to your normal talking heads conference, Day Two A.M. is to your traditional trade show. That is, you’ll recognize the floor plan but enjoy an entirely different experience! Everyone will both exhibit and visit. That is, each person will spend time as the cast member for their own team’s exhibit as well walking the floor in search of insights at other exhibits. You should detect the open space feel. All of the morning’s festivities will take place in the same room, facilitating ease of flow and getting to know each other’s discoveries. The idea of showcasing ideas in an Experience Fair seems so simple. It is simple. So why say more?
As we now do at every thinkAbout, we close the event with a countdown of ten experiences, each one worthy of directly experiencing by our participants. More than that, however, each one exemplifies a particular principle that we find compelling for business today. With the revealing of each experience, starting with number 10, we ask participants to apply this principle to their own business, given their own circumstances, to see what ideas emerge. The final experience on our list wins our Experience Stager of the Year award, complete with the bronze EXPY statuette now gracing five previous top experiences: American Girl Place, The Geek Squad, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, LEGO, and, of course, the Cerritos Public Library itself. Participants will hear from the 2004 Experience Stager of the Year – then apply what they hear to their own businesses. And with that, thinkAbout will come to an end.