Case Studies - Examples of Excellence
The Taiwan Society for Organizational Learning - A Conference Gone Right
Challenge - Create an interactive conference to explore human capital and e-learning.
Constraints - Language and culture challenges, design team unknown to each other, very complex design, multiple desired outcomes on part of organizers, minimal planning time.
People involved - Over 150, from all sectors of society - business, government, education.
Timeline - Two days.
Internal partners - TAOSOL members
What We Did - Elements of Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, Theory U, and World Café, were woven together with more music, reflection, deep dialogue, the creation of skits and traditional keynote presentations.
The Result - Based on the feedback of the participants, the organizers, the designers, the hosts and the facilitators, this was among the most unusual and inspiring conferences any of us had ever experienced. People moved far beyond the usual conference fare of how to apply a particular method at their work, into envisioning a future for the whole of Taiwan.
Because the level of participation, energy and coherence among attendees was so unusual, the hosting team spent server al months afterwards in conversations exploring what we did and observed. The result is two documents - a short four summary and introduction, and a longer 39 page (with many photos) examination of what we learned.
These documents (pdf) will be particularly interesting to people whose work involves planning conferences and large events where a high level of participation on the part of the attendees is desired.
Executive Summary Full Report