20-04-30 Effectively Running Seminars

Category: Idea Lists (Upon Request)

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1. Establish your seminar’s purpose.

1. Follow up after the seminar to make sure the purpose was fulfilled.
2. Have people say one question they have about the topic as they come.
3. Have people say one creative idea they have in the domain as they come.
4. Allow for 5 minutes of reflection time to write out problems and solutions.
5. Keep notes in real time in a document everybody has access to.
6. Allow people to type questions in the document so that they’re not lost.
7. Breakout into smaller conversations intending to accomplish goals.
8. Create a comprehensive resource list on questions of interest.
9. Read the assignment at least twice.
10. Ask every major type of question:
11. Who?
    1. Who has written the best papers on this subject?
12. What?
    1. Define what we mean by topic of seminar, or the space of meanings here.
13. Where?
    1. Which institutions are most capable of taking action on this?
14. When?
    1. How quickly do we expect this to work?
15. How?
    1. Which specific implementations? What are the bottlenecks to working on it?
16. Why?
    1. Is this safer? Faster? More likely to work? More inspired / inspiring? More powerful?
17. Lesson 1:
18. Get vocal buy in. Follow up with people to make sure they’re aware the morning of an event. This will solve the problem of people showing up 10m late and last-minute cancellations leaving events unfull.
19. Lesson 2:
20. Have at most one close friend in an event, to avoid informality ruining the ability to make progress (or make sure that the norms with the friend are discussed beforehand). This will solve the problem of needing to direct conversations and behavior.
21. Lesson 3:
22. A theme through all the successful events is that early on I have everybody working independently heads down, generating criticisms, ideas or plans. This focuses them on the topic. Leaving this too late in the event can create a lack of seriousness early on.
23. Lesson 4:
24. Make sure that everybody who attends contributes meaningfully to the event. If they do not or cannot, modify the event to make their presence transformative or invite somebody else.

Source: Original Google Doc