Another great info-chunker is learning evangelist Kathleen Edwards, who is rapidly becoming one of my new favorite meeting design experts. At her 15-minute session at the Learning Pavilion, she had kind of a new year’s theme, as in “Out with old, in with the new.”

What’s out:
A small group of people on a program committee who may or may not know what the audience wants and/or needs making all the content choices for the conference.

What’s in:
Using technology to connect with the audience to learn what they really need.

What’s out:
Speakers who try to cram everything they’ve ever learned into a session.

What’s in:
Outcomes-focused, learner-centered sessions that focus on key points that can be digested over the course of the session.

What’s out:
Sage on the stage providing a one-way firehose of information.

What’s in:
Guide on the side who engages the learners and facilitates learning by making it all about you, the learner.

What’s out:
Learner apathy, as in people who just sit and passively absorb (or not) the information.

What’s in:
Learners who take charge of their learning. If they aren’t getting what they want, they’ll go somewhere else to get it.

I had a blast this morning facilitating (with a serious power assist from Velvet Chainsaw’s Jeff Hurt) one the Really Live Chats in the PCMA Convening Leaders Learning Lounge. The topic was “designing meetings for learning,” or something like that—in true chat form, we meandered around a bit.

The format was pretty cool. The Velvet Chainsaw peeps had recorded (some recordings more polished than others) a bunch of really interesting people saying some really interesting things about meetings, brains, learning, and how grown-ups perceive the world and each other. We would watch a video, or more likely, a short snip of a video, then talk about it, brainstorm, spark ideas off of each other, gain insights or just commiserate when we couldn’t think of ways to get at a specific issue.

As one person said, it was great to have the option to do something informal but not totally unstructured, as a break from the more formal breakouts going on elsewhere.

I haven’t had time to put my thoughts together too coherently, since I haven’t had a whole lot of time to stop and reflect on what came out of that Really Live Chat (one of the things we did talk about a lot was the need to build in reflection times so our brains have time to digest what we’re learning, but to do it in a more organic way than just say, “stop and talk amongst yourselves”). But I will say without much reflection at all that I love the format, and having the videos to get discussions started, and then tying what they talk about into real-life examples of what we do and what we now would like to do, is one example of a well-designed meeting component if you want people to learn rather than just hear content.

What I would love to do is, once the videos are posted (which I hear they will be), is to sort of reverse-reverse engineer the format and try to maybe put together a Google+ hangout or some other easy, informal way to continue the conversations as we learn more from the Big Brains, and/or bring new folks into the discussions. We only viewed maybe two full videos and a piece of a third; there is so much more there to talk about and we only have so many hours here in San Diego (did I mention the absolute hugeness of the content on tap here? Not just in the Learning Lounge and general sessions and breakouts, but there’s also the co-located Virtual Edge Summit’s plethora of interesting-sounding deep dives into hybrid, virtual, 3D, and who knows what else meetings?).

We all know that our senses don’t work in isolation, that what we see can affect what we taste (which may explain why green ketchup didn’t take off, and why Coke’s plan to help polar bears with a special edition of its regular Coke in white cans freaked out regular Coke drinkers, who insisted that it tasted like Diet Coke even though the formula was exactly the same). Retail stores have soundtracks designed specifically to slow you down so you shop longer.

But it wasn’t until reading this article on cross-sensory perception in The Boston Globe last week that I realized just how much our senses cross over to affect each other. (Though it’s not the same as synesthesia, which has always fascinated me, it has to be related.) A few examples from the article:

Research has found that “people rate potato chips as crisper and better-tasting when a louder crunch is played back over headphones as they eat. A study published this year showed that people thought a strawberry mousse tasted sweeter, more intense, and better when they ate it off a white plate rather than a black plate.”

And while we know that decor and environmental factors can enhance (or detract from) a dining experience, that strong-smelling floral arrangement centerpiece may actually be making the food taste bad. As the article points out: “…we are now beginning to understand that these elements don’t just create atmosphere and associations — they can actually make food taste different. For example, several studies have found that adding red coloring can make drinks taste sweeter, allowing a company to reduce sugar content while turning color up a notch.”

Also according to the article, a company called Condiment Junkie is finding ways to use sound to enhance experiences. For example, “The company has worked with Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, England, run by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, to develop soundtracks to bring out specific flavors in the food, based on their finding that hearing certain sounds (high tones, tinkling pianos) make people perceive a bittersweet toffee as more sweet, while hearing low-pitched tones and trombones make the toffee taste more bitter.”

Why meeting planners should care about all this? Well, for one thing, it’s already spawned a conference of its own to share findings around cross-sensory perception. And it has obvious F&B implications, of course. Here’s another: “And the new work may ultimately affect how the rest of us learn, as well. Shams’s group at UCLA has found that people learn a visual task better when it’s accompanied by sound, for instance — even when they are later tested using only vision.”

But more importantly, just think of all the things we can do to enhance our learning environment if we can quantify other ways in which one sensory input also affects other senses in ways that enhance learning. It sounds like we’re just beginning to untangle how all these sensory interactions mesh to enhance, detract from, amplify, or otherwise affect how we experience the world, and how we learn.

If anyone knows of good research in this area, please let me know. I’m deeply fascinated by the whole topic.

“Mission mirroring” is described as “the phenomenon that occurs when an organization [or a meeting, adds me] becomes enmeshed internally in the same conflicts it was founded to deal with externally.” When I read about it on Mark Athitakis’ Acronym post, I couldn’t help but think of all those meeting sessions I’ve been to on how to conduct good, relevant adult education, delivered didactically with hideously convoluted, impossible to read PowerPoint decks, with the speaker all the while saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Uh, disconnect or what?

Mark asks, “Is simply acknowledging the problem quite enough to help fix it?” GIven my meeting example, definitely not, especially since it has been going on for at least the 12 (or is it 13 now?) years I’ve been covering this industry. While I have seen some small improvements (and to be fair, there are some people who rock the house at actually using adult learning principles to teach adult learning principles), it’s all too often still the norm. And these are the educators! I’m not sure what we can do to break this mirror. Any suggestions?

I’ve been catching up on my RSS feeds this afternoon, and man are there some interesting things going on. Too many to write a post about each (and I’m feeling a tad lazy), so here’s link roundup instead:

Meetings
Adrian Segar issues this challenge to all meeting organizers: Make the results of your evaluations public I am so behind this idea—why everyone isn’t already doing this, I can’t imagine. It’s not like attendees don’t already know what worked and what didn’t, so what’s the issue? Also, don’t miss his great suggestions on how you can get great attendee evaluation response rates.

Ken Molay over at the Webinar blog offers up why webinar registration is like Christmas shopping. I’d expand it to encompass any type of event registration.

Brains and Behavior
You really are what you know (Slashdot) This one is pretty cool—MRI scans of London cabbie brains show that the brains physically change after training. Wouldn’t you love to be able to scan to see what your sessions are doing to your attendees?

The Meeting Space Should Not Define The Use, The Behavior Should While he doesn’t cite any MRI data, Jeff Hurt does talk about how behavior and learning are affected by the physical space in which we expect people to learn (and, theoretically, behave).

Travel
TSA Facing Death By 1,000 Cuts (Slashdot) This fall has not been without incident for our screeners.

XL passengers invade my economy class seat — and airlines let them
(Elliott.org) Not sure how I feel about this one. I’ve been painfully squished by oversized seatmates, and it’s not fun. Then again, it’s not fun for them, either. I’d like to see airlines set aside a certain portion of seats designed specifically for larger folks, but in this era of “cram ‘em in and forget about passenger comfort,” I can’t really see it happening. But to ask someone to buy two seats also doesn’t seem all that fair either.

Just Because I Found Them Interesting and Hope You Do Too

Most hated buzzwords (MeetingBoy via BoingBoing) I know it is what it is, but we probably should circle back to find some robust, no-brainer ways to work smarter so that, at the end of the day, we take it to the next level to a 30,000-foot view of a paradigm shift.

2012 color of the year: tangerine tango
(Special Events). It’s actually a very striking color, if it actually looks anything like it renders on my netbook. Plus, what a great name! Brochure designers, take heed!

This story is so sweet and charming and wonderful that I had to share it: Who left a tree, then a coffin in the library?

Last but by no means least, check out this list of the 56 best/worst similes. Prepare to laugh until the dog looks at you funny if you click this link! Among my faves:

6. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
18. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
48. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.

If you want your participants to sit up and pay attention, give them some gum. Yup, it seems that there’s some recent research that suggests chewing gum helps make you more attentive and perform better on tests. Unfortunately, the boost in brain power only lasts 20 minutes, but still, maybe it’s time to replace those little dishes of mints and hard candies with sugarless gum?

I’m in Baltimore for the National Task Force on CME Provider/Industry Collaboration conference, which is one of those typically brain-exhausting two-day information marathons where so much gets thrown at you you’re lucky if anything sticks. As was made kind of obvious at the opening general session, when the conference chair asked the audience members who had attended the previous year if 1) they remembered one thing they had learned last year, and 2) if they had done anything differently because of what they learned. I saw maybe five or 10 hands go up in that crowd of a couple hundred people. Ouch.

But the organizers recognized that this was a problem (they are, after all, adult ed experts) and decided to try something new this year. They handed out a reflection sheet that had a space for the session title and speaker name, key points made, and action plan and implications. They even included a 10-minute period after the keynote to fill out the form and discuss your key points and action plans with others at the table, which I found incredibly useful. Unfortunately, the next 10-minute “reflection and application” period doesn’t happen until the very end of the conference, and we’ve only been reminded to do it I think once since, but it’s a start. They also are using some sort of a closed electronic system that allows people to follow along with the PowerPoints and submit questions in some sessions.

It is a bit depressing to see these folks (again, experts in adult ed) doing the same old bad practice of cramming way too much into their hour-long presentations, but I guess old habits are wicked hard to break. Is it the fear that people won’t think they’re getting their money’s worth if the presentations were more streamlined and interactive? This deserves some thought, since we all (OK, well most of us) seem to be clinging to this with a death grip even when we know it’s not the best way to educate. Building in a few 10-minute discussion and reflection periods are at least a start (and the communities of practice sessions, at least the one I went to, was much more a discussion than a lecture, and probably was one of the most useful sessions of the day for me).

On the plus side: The Marriott Waterfront makes a mean crabcake, of which I partook happily at the reception last night. Now if we could just get WiFi in the ballroom and breakout rooms, I’d be a happy camper.

I’ve been to many sessions at industry conferences that teach about different learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile), and I do believe that different people may learn best in different ways. But the problem that always brings up for meeting managers is, of course, how do you accommodate all those learning styles in one session? And multiply that over dozens, maybe even hundreds of sessions over the course of a conference, and it becomes a pretty difficult proposition, or so I’ve heard.

In fact, according to this item on NPR, some researchers now say that there’s no evidence that tailoring education to different learner types actually improves learning. Instead, they say, it might make more sense to rely on other learning theories that have evidence to back up their worth

Far be it from me to argue that it’s not a good idea “to figure out similarities in how our brains learn, rather than differences.” That means, says University of Virginia Professor Dan Willingham, to boost attention by switching things up regularly. “Mixing things up is something we know is scientifically supported as something that boosts attention,” he says in the article. Another good practice supported by research is to provide chunks of learning over a period of time, rather than dumping the lot on learners all at once.

While the article appears to be talking about teaching kids, I think it holds true for us alleged grownups as well.

For presenters and planners, what’s your philosophy and/or practice (they may be two different things) when it comes to accommodating different learning styles? If you do, how do you deal with the logistics of it? If you don’t, what do you default to, and what if any effect do you think it has on the learning?

Update: I totally forgot about this interesting article Ellie Bayrd, Associate Editor with Meetings: Minnesota’s Hospitality Journal, wrote last year on learning styles (it even, ahem, includes a few quotes from your truly).

Jeff Hurt has a knack for coming up with some pretty catchy ways to talk about common meeting woes, such as cramming too much information into people without giving them time to digest it. His most recent is really sick: We Need a New Drug. Sample line: “We need some conference-related Pepto-Bismol that will treat upset brains, information indigestion, diarrhea mind and brain-burn when conference presenters try to shovel too much information into our minds.” And he asks what conference drug we’d design to help cure the common conference.

OK, I’m game. How about:

The People Pill: Soothes CIRD (Jeff’s acronym for conference information reflux disease, which is a pretty awesome play on GERD, though there’s nothing funny about the latter) caused by information overload by forcing presenters to interrupt their presentations to allow for some interaction and peer-to-peer problem-solving.

Clarity: Brings relief to eyes that are red, itchy, and watery from straining to see overly complicated slides in a dark room hour after hour by making certain all slides are pre-screened to ensure they are simple, graphically pleasing, and are adjuncts to the presentation, not the presentation itself to be read off the screen.

SpecialEffexor: This pill will bring up the mood of the crowd by injecting some fun, creativity, and surprise into stage set and the overall meeting design.

SeeAllUs: Causes a presenter’s laser pointer to rise up to the ceiling, where it stays for the duration of the session, forcing the presenter to interact with the people in the room instead of the PowerPoint on the screen.

I better stop now before I make myself feel a bit ill…

People say all the time that there are no questions too stupid to ask, but I’m thinking that’s really not true. Or rather, that you can ask them, but beware the consequences. For example, I was just reading this post on the Fully Committed blog, in which a stupid question (”So what does National Speakers Association do?” asked of the NSA’s meeting planner by a new national sales representative for a major hotel corporation who has had the NSA’s file on her desk for months) still lingers in that planner’s mind 10 years after the fact.

I’ve asked at least one that I know of in my 12 years with MeetingsNet. Someone at a conference a couple of years ago told me about how a question I asked him about AMA PRA Category 1 credit when I was first starting out was in fact so stupid that he regularly uses it as an example when talking with people (with, “can you believe an editor with Medical Meetings didn’t know that?!”). Why he felt compelled to tell me this I don’t know—I’d really rather not have known not only about my stupid question, but that it lives on in infamy, thank you very much.

Anyway, I understand Cara’s point in her post, that the person really should have done her homework before the meeting (and I agree that she should have). And I guess I should have learned the details of this aspect of the business I’d be covering before interviewing anyone. (I am struggling not to defend myself here, because there’s a lot to know with this business, and I really don’t think it was wrong to ask instead of pretending I knew what he was talking about. Oops, a little defensiveness just slipped through!)

In the end, even with my face glowing red every time I think about my stupid question experience, I stand by my philosophy that it’s always better to ask, whether you know, as the rep did in Cara’s example, that the question is stupid, or not, as was the case with me. And hope that the person you’re asking understands that you’re only asking because you want to learn, even if it is too little and too late.

What do you think? Is it better to lower the quality of the interaction by not asking that stupid question and blustering your way through? Or is it better to ask it and lose face/cred with the other person in order to have a more informed discussion?