Severely overinsulated (wk 24/2025)
Hot air balloon conferences; ideal-typical convenings; open space; delicious trash foods in South Australia.
Hello friends,
This morning, I ran a half-day workshop on distinguishing uncertainty from risk, and on using signals and scenarios as a strategy tool when facing uncertainty. It was for a mixed group from risk, resilience, strategy, and continuity functions at SA Water, the state water utility of South Australia. If you want something like that done for your team or organisation, you could drop me a line.
Writing
In the last decade, I’ve designed and facilitated several convenings and been a participant at many more. The ones which were the hardest to do (and to get approved) were also the ones most worth doing and being a part of. What do I mean? Most convenings are what I call Your Usual Conference, built around a “fixed schedule of keynotes, papers, and panels published in advance.” These are rarely easy to actually run, but they are easy to conceptualise and conceptually easy to plan. So the people paying for them and running for them know what to expect — Your Usual Conference is easy to get approved and to actually do. But they’re never Great.
For a convening to rise to the level of being Great means deep memorability, unexpected but strong connections formed, and transformational exposure to new perspectives and ways of thinking. The first MAD Symposium in 2011 was Great, so was MAD5 in 2016, Science Foo Camp in 2008, the Bar Camps in Boston in 2011/12, Kinnernet 2013, and Curiosity Camp 2024. For Greatness to happen, the structure of the convening must respond to what is happening during the convening. A predesigned conference is definitionally unresponsive. In its ideal form, a Great convening is an emergent phenomenon, and it always requires extremely good facilitation, an absurd amount of preparation, and an unrealistic willingness to not-know what is going to happen. I love Great Convenings, and it turns out I’ve written about aspects of this for some time:
👉 Behind the scenes at a non-linear, emergent conference.
👉 The ideal form of a convening (for me).
👉 Why designing for open-endedness is hard but essential.
Elsewhere
I’ve been in Adelaide at MOD. for a week, and have already had a chicken parm, some Cherry Ripe, and a bunch of Tim-Tams. Still looking for FruChocs, a burger with the lot, a good frog cake, and the infelicitously named Chico Babies. All the fancy people are wearing RM Williams, and all the tradies are wearing Blundstones. The central business district is appealingly small, walkable, and heterogeneous — it feels more like the core of Marseille than the City of London. The weather right now, in the Depths of Winter, is appropriate for T-shirts. I was told by Locals to bring lots of warm clothing so am severely overinsulated. Soon, I hope to report favourably on my attempts to obtain a secondary market NST egg.
See you next week for real,
VT