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Contributed by Birgitt Bolton June 16, 1999 This story was published in The Financial Post (Saturday,
June 12, 1999) |
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Brainstorming without a net'Un-conferences' attended by Fast Company devotees aim to groom leaders for the business revolution Greg Crone Brian Capstick took a day off from his hectic computer engineering job at Canadian Tire Corp. and paid $150 of his own money to attend a seminar with no experts, no gurus and no keynote speaker. Hell, it didn't even have an agenda. But as far as Mr. Capstick is concerned, it couldn't have worked better. Welcome to the "un-seminar" or "un-conference." The theme of the recent Toronto meeting was "Transform the World of Work -- Design the Life You Love." Under that broad topic, it was up to the 150 participants to talk about what they wanted to talk about and be their own resources. Mr. Capstick said he himself came with a completely open mind and his only expectation was to find ways to make his team work more effectively. "I'm looking for ideas to pass up the chain and to provide some thoughts about how we can do things a little differently to help the vision we have as an IT department and as a company," he says. "For me, it's also about being a more effective leader to facilitate that." The event was organized, and that word is used loosely, by the Toronto "cell" of the Company of Friends, a network of readers of the Boston-based business magazine Fast Company. There are 15,000 members worldwide who belong to cells in 100 cities in 22 countries. In addition to Toronto, there are Canadian cells in Kelowna, Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia, as well as Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. With 500 members, Toronto's cell is the largest worldwide and the recent brainstorming meeting, a sold-out event, was the first of its kind. Another is planned later this month in Washington. "There is a little bit of chaos in it," says Vicki Saunders, a consultant and founder of the Toronto cell. "The people here are going to create what they need at this moment. It's not about somebody else setting up the agenda for your life. Everybody here is a free agent or wants to be a free agent. It's about them finding the resources that they need around the issue that they're struggling with." The Toronto meeting followed the principles of Open Space Technology, a new form of holding conferences created by Harrison Owen, a Maryland organizational consultant. Mr. Owen noticed that coffee breaks were the most fruitful aspect of many conferences. He came up with a loose structure to recreate the chaotic but productive aspects of a coffee break. An open space conference simply follows a few key principles: everyone must be passionate about the topic; whoever comes are the right people; whatever happens is the only thing that could have; whenever it starts is the right time; and when it's over, it's over. Joanne Saundercook-Menard, a Mississauga, Ont., teacher who is designing programs for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, was present to make connections. "All of these people are owners and operators of entrepreneurial organizations," she says. "The current government talks about kids working towards creating their own opportunities and their own businesses. We have to be able to support that kind of notion by making it practical and making connections for them with the real people in the real world who actually do this." She said educators themselves are being challenged to find new ways to to develop entrepreneurialism among students. "It's not pie in the sky. Every kid has the potential to move in this direction. These are the people who can help kids do that. They're entrepreneurial, they're creative and they just move forward." The Toronto meeting was facilitated by Birgitt Bolton, an Ancaster, Ont., consultant trained in Open Space Technology. Participants were asked to write topic ideas on large pieces of paper -- ideas such as how to use time better or how to be more creative --which were then posted on a wall. The ideas were grouped together and break-out groups were formed around similar ideas. Participants simply went to whatever group they felt like and talked about whatever they wanted to talk about. At the end of the day-long session, a list of learnings or findings were accumulated and then tapped into a half-dozen laptop computers that were provided. The results will be compiled and distributed by e-mail to all participants. Ms. Saunders says it's a big improvement over a traditional conference that is planned months in advance with an agenda and set of experts who may no longer be relevant to what participants want. "With the speed of change in society right now, by the time that kind of conference happens, it's already old news," she says. "By bringing people together the day of and creating an agenda the day of, it's current. It's completely relevant to the people that are there because it is created by the people there. They are creating as they go. You are a free agent in an entrepreneurial world. People really need to form their own ideas and figure out what they want, as opposed to reacting to someone who has a new fad." Chris Mackechnie, who works for Information DesignWorks, a Toronto marketing firm, says the biggest challenge of his job is the need to be creative on demand. Being in a room with 150 creative, entrepreneurial types helped get his "brain cells vibrating," he says. "The biggest nugget I got had to do with passion," he says. "Everybody is passionate about something. As long as you can harness that passion as part of your work, you're going to be successful and your company is going to benefit from it. The problem lies when your passions do not go head to head with the job that you find yourself into." Leading-edge companies are adapting jobs to their employees' passions, not simply finding someone to fill a job. Mr. Mackechnie says it's like fitting a shoe to a foot, not fitting a foot into a shoe. "Find out what people's passions are and try to connect. I'd never looked at things that way before." It was the first Fast Company meeting he has attended, Mr. Mackechnie says. Although a regular reader, he says he does not consider himself part of the "Fast Company army." But now he is a convert. "I sometimes question whether it crosses the line into cult. If there is chanting and incense burning, I'm out the door. So I was very skeptical at first, but I was very quickly brought to the dark side. All that touchy-feelly crap, I usually try and fight it. In this case, instead of the speakers and the presenters being the important part, it was the participants. That's what really made it." Heath Row, a Fast Company associate editor who attended the Toronto meeting, said the Company of Friends idea started about two years ago almost by accident. People receiving a Fast Company e-mail newsletter started to network online and then meet. "People were saying things like, 'I thought I was alone. I didn't know anybody else thought like this about business other than me.' " Calling the groups cells and other New Age aspects might be off-putting to some, but Mr. Row says it's really all about trading experiences. "If it's not right for you, it's not right. But that doesn't devalue the experience. It's a new form of networking. It's all self-organizing and self-selected." Even the networking is not traditional because it does not have a specific end. "It's people as portals. There are people who know people, and that's going to be increasingly important in the world of work." Fast company people/portal story - (FP) Contributed by Birgitt
Bolton |