CONFERENCES
Convergence 97
Convergence 1997
- Post and Pre - Conference Workshops -
Lynda Curtin, The Opportunity Thinker
We hear these recommendations often but in order to change the way we think, we need new, practical thinking tools. Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking is a systematic process that shows us how to think more effectively. In this two-day skill building workshop, you will learn five powerful techniques that will enable you to generate innovative solutions on demand. You will also learn how to make creativity a regular part of your everyday business practices in order to achieve strategic objectives such as market leadership. Participants will received an extensive workbook (retail value: $120).
Participants will learn how to:
-
1. Think outside the
box.
2. Systematically increase practical, new idea output.
3. Structure powerful, creative thinking sessions.
4. Constructively challenge your organization's status quo to identify improvement opportunities and create new ways of doing things.
Jerry McNellis, The McNellis Company
This two-day hands-on workshop demonstrates a new way of living and working in organizations. If you have been through a boring idea generation or planning session, you will love the possibilities of storyboarding. Meetings and planning sessions can be productive, fun and creative when the environment is right and when a tool such as storyboarding is used to stimulate collaboration.
In this session you will learn the skills needed to design and facilitate productive group work sessions. You will work on a real world, live project that you will bring with you from your organization! You'll also leave with results. Lastly, you'll leave with a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that you will be able to conduct sessions that will energize and vitalize people. The curse is that you will never again be able to sit in a boring, unproductive meeting
without running screaming from the room! Participants will:
- Learn to use Compression Planning to guide project teams through a planning session.
- Be able to successfully design an agenda which will act as a "road map" during the planning session.
- Learn the concept of Pure Form Thinking and how it applies to the Compression Planning method of getting the best out of workgroups.
- Learn how to help groups focus and prioritize their output into a manageable and implementable form.
- Learn to move a project team through action planning and communication phases to ensure effective implementation of ideas and plans.
Jerry McNellis, President of The McNellis Company, is a pioneer and a leading expert in the use of storyboarding as a brainstorming, planning and collaboration process. He loves watching and assisting the people who make things happen but aren't necessarily the stars. He defines his role as an invisible assistant helping people use storyboarding to turn chaos into purpose. (Thursday/Friday, April 10-11, 8:30 - 5:00. Fee $795)
"Think outside the box."
Lynda Curtin, The Opportunity Thinker
We hear these recommendations often but in order to change the way we think, we need new, practical thinking tools. Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking is a systematic process that shows us how to think more effectively. In this two-day skill building workshop, you will learn five powerful techniques that will enable you to generate innovative solutions on demand. You will also learn how to make creativity a regular part of your everyday business practices in order to achieve strategic objectives such as market leadership. Participants will received an extensive workbook (retail value: $120).
Participants will learn how to:
- Think outside the box.
- Systematically increase practical, new idea output.
- Structure powerful, creative thinking sessions.
- Constructively challenge your organization's status quo to identify improvement opportunities and create new ways of doing things.
(Thursday/Friday, April 10-11, 8:30 - 5:00. Fee $795)
Graphic Recording
Christine Valenza, Art4Change
In this lively, interactive, hands-on session, you will learn how to graphically organize, sequence, and format information generated by groups in ways that will improve communication and enhance learning. This two-day session is an ideal introduction to graphic recording for facilitators, presenters, trainers, teachers, change agents and anyone who wants to get ideas across to a group of people.
In this session you will:
- Expand your ability to think in pictures (and be able to draw them!)
- Create a toolbox of images
- Develop process to carry many levels of information forward
- Become adept at taking advantage of the speed at which the mind processes and acts on information.
(Thursday/Friday, April 10-11, 8:30 - 5:00. Fee $795)
An Open Space Experience
Joe Miguez, Expanding Thought
Back by popular demand! At Convergence 96 we introduced a half-day "open space" session focused on implementing innovation. One attendee claims that this session doubled the value of the conference for him. Open space is a self-managed gathering of people with common interests. There are no speeches or formal presentations, no pre-arranged papers, no panel discussions, lectures or dominating points-of-view -- in fact, no pre-set structure at all. However, with this powerful process, within 30 minutes the seeming lack of order disappears and the group creates a comprehensive agenda and organizes its space and time. This process harnasses the power of the group while allowing each person to design an individual program.
Participants will:
- Participate in a series of discussions focused on implementing innovation
- Create a book of ideas and insights from the experience
- Experience the process of open space
Joe Miguez, Principal of Expanding Thought, co-author of The Journey: A Fable.
(Thursday, April 10, 8:30 - 12:30. Fee: $195)
Tom Samsel, Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation
The Great Game of Business is about getting every employee involved in the concept of running the business in a way that will produce positive results for the company and the employees. The approach was used by the Springfield ReManufacturing Corp to create one of the most dramatic turnarounds in recent history. Since then, thousands of other companies have embraced the concepts which will be presented in this half-day session.
Participants will:
- Gain a thorough understanding of the Great Game of Business concepts
- Know the Rules of the game
- Know how to Follow the Action and Keep Score
- Learn how to let everyone have a Stake in the Outcome
(Thursday, April 10, 8:30 - 12:30. Fee: $195)
Betty Edwards, Ed.D., author of Drawing on the Artist Within and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
In this special workshop, you will learn to tap into a deep level of your creativity and see things around you differently. You will also learn how to translate those perceptions into drawings which can reveal meaning that often eludes the expressive power of words and therefore can be useful for unlocking creative ideas and solutions to problems that frequently seem "too complicated for words."
Learning Objectives:
- How to bypass the verbal, analytical brain processes which are normally used in idea generation methods such as brainstorming.
- Show you how to use the visual, perceptual processes of R-mode that allow the individual to see things more clearly.
- How to slow down perceptions in order to "really see" what is "out there."
- How to use drawings to think more effectively and solve problems efficiently.
Betty Edwards, Ed.D., author of the best-selling Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and Drawing on the Artist Within, Director of the Brain-Ed Center, California State University, Long Beach.
(Saturday, April 5: 9:00 - 5:00, Sunday, April 6: 9:00 - 12:30. Fee: $995)