Hi all, I'm wondering if this might be useful to folks on this list. Mike Rozinsky and I have a project When & How Studios which supports people in creating rich, participatory experiences for their organisations or communities. This week we’re launching a series of three public online workshops to folks who are working on designing and facilitating gatherings this spring, or wanting to bring participation into a talk or keynote. It provides somewhere to do the actual design work for a real group experience that you're working towards, a peer-support group to enrich your learning and development, and a set of design conversations that you can take with you into the future. We call them the 16 Design Aspects. This is a series of three 90 minute online sessions, running weekly on Tue 25th April, Tue 2nd May and Tue 9th May. See the event page or site for full details, including a 2 min video which explains more. Many thanks, Dan

Dear fellow facilitator community, I'm writing in hopes that you can help me spread the word about two workshops I am offering this June and July after a three-year pandemic hiatus! They are related to meeting facilitation, engagement and the use of visuals. I'm excited to announce my annual graphic facilitation workshop - is scheduled for July 13 &14 in Rossland, BC, Canada at the beautiful "slopeside" Josie Hotel. Come join me and make it a retreat! For those that only have one-day or may not be able to travel, I am also offering a NEW HYBRID workshop June 2nd (Engaging Beyond Words) where people can join in-person (in Rossland, BC) or online. Consider this a graphic facilitation light with less focus on large scale graphics and still lots of focus on using visuals to help retain learning. These workshops are for anyone looking to use visual thinking and visual methods to increase engagement in meetings, presentations, reports and so much more! I've attached a couple posters and would very much appreciate you sharing with anyone you know that may be interested in learning about graphic facilitation or visuals to help retain learning! All information including registration is online - michellelaurie.com. Considering joining and thank you so much for helping me spread the LOVE of visuals, drawing on walls and engaging meetings on this Valentine's Day! xo, Michelle 1.250.231.0635 | michellelaurie.com connect@... -- michellelaurie.com connect@... Strategy-Assessment-Engagement-Faciltation

Dear people, here is an invitation for an upcoming Virtual Facilitation Practice with a special Guest Facilitator. Mor information and link to register below. With my best wishes, Fernando Murray Based in Nelson, BC, supporting individuals and organizations globally. Virtual Facilitation Practice • Winter 2023 Hybrid Meetings Exploring and Learning with Virtual Facilitation Practitioners We are thrilled to announce our upcoming Virtual Facilitation Practice with Mark Tippin, Strategic Next Practices Director at Mural! This time, we are focusing on the current and essential topic of Hybrid Meetings. Join us and a community of Virtual Facilitation colleagues as we dive into the challenges and opportunities of this new era of meetings. Let's explore and learn from one another, as we come together to advance our skills and knowledge in this rapidly changing field! This Practice takes place on: February 28th, from 9:00am to 10:30am PST Click here to check your timezone! Please register using this link: https://www.virtualfacilitation.com/practice

Following up on the recent conversations on virtual activities, I wanted to share with you a virtual platform we created during COVID. This platform was to ensure we could still run experiential activities in the virtual or hybrid world. The platform is VirtualGlass™ and can be used by facilitators to run experiential activities we have designed or have permission to use, or you facilitate your session and bring us in just to run the activity as a moderator, and/or facilitator. Here are a few videos about the platform and a few activities Why we created VirtualGlass™ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iu6lkLGtWo What to do when you can’t be together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzm3pux_aRA Two sample activities Distortion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdUjgd_jns0 Aggregate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD3iKCbatTM Check our website for a list of activities https://glassoflearning.com/virtual-learning/ If you would like to try out VirtualGlass™ join our virtual showcase on Wednesday, September 28th, registration information below Take part three experiential activities See how the discussion forum captures group discussion for follow up Register here https://glassoflearning.hubspotpagebuilder.com/virtualglass-showcase-sign-up-3-0 If you have any questions, please reach out. Best regards, Nancy Nancy Priest CTDP, CVF Owner & CEO Glass of Learning Inc. 519-591-3991 www.glassoflearning.com nancy@...

Hi Everyone, I'm wondering if there is (or could be invented) a game which is both fun to play AND collaborative. This would be a game that could help build a sense of community inside an online community (just like the F4C-Response community we all belong to here on this email list). Many people have probably heard about the online word game called Wordle (recently bought by the NY Times) where a player will try to figure out a 5-letter word with six or fewer guesses. Here's an article which explains some of the game dynamics that make it popular. I've copied some of the key quotes at the far bottom of this email. Here's one key quote from the article:"Wordle isn't just a word game, it's a conversation starter and a chance to show off on social media. That's why it's going viral." With Wordle, all players are figuring out a solution to a challenge individually and then they can share their results. It's definitely fun and lets people brag on social media "Look how fast I solved this one." I think that there is a significant amount of "look at me" / competitiveness when sharing the results, and although some of that is healthy, it's not (in my opinion) the best dynamic to promote within an online community that is intended to be collaborative. So I am wondering if there is or could be something more collaborative, for example everyone in an online community contributing only part of the solution of a shared challenge. I'll offer one example of a collaborative game that seems to meet these criteria. It is based on Wordle, but if you suggest a game, it definitely does not have to be based on Wordle. My suggestion would be to have a full, regular sentence with about 10 words, each of which is its own Wordle puzzle. Any one community member would be allowed to solve a maximum of one of these words each day. When all words are solved, then the sentence is solved. A new sentence would be released once per day if the previous sentence was already solved. I think this changes the dynamic from "look at me" to "look how I solved this word for the community". Does anyone have feedback on this idea or other game suggestions? Thank you! Lucas Cioffi -------------------- Quotes from the article It's just a word game. But it's super popular: Over 300,000 people play it daily, according to The New York Times. That popularity may sound perplexing, but there are a few tiny details that have resulted in everyone going absolutely bonkers for it. There's only one puzzle per day: This creates a certain level of stakes. You only get one shot at the Wordle. If you mess up, you have to wait until tomorrow to get a brand new puzzle. Everyone is playing the exact same puzzle: This is crucial, as it makes it easier to ping your buddy and chat about the day's puzzle. "Today's was tough!" "How did you get on?" "Did you get it?" Which takes us to the next point... It's easy to share your results: Once you've successfully or unsuccessfully done the puzzle for the day, you're invited to share your Wordle journey for the day. If you tweet the image, it looks like this... Note that the word and letters you chose are obscured. All that's shown is your journey toward the word in a series of yellow, green and gray boxes.It's very compelling. If you get it easily, maybe in the second or third try, there's a gloating element whereby you must show your followers how smart you are and share.If you get it by the skin of your teeth in the sixth go, that's also a cool story. But most importantly, the puzzle itself isn't spoiled.