Impromptu Networking

Purpose

• Facilitate information sharing and reflection, deepening the level of inquiry/engagement with each round.
• Affirm individual contributions to solutions and emphasize the power of loose and new connections: Everyone contributes to shaping the work, noticing patterns together, and discovering local solutions.

Facilitation Instructions

• Ask two questions (both answered in each round). Use one challenge question and one give-and-take question
• Example challenge and give-and-take prompts include: What big challenge do you bring to this gathering? What do you hope to get from and give this group or community? What problem are you trying to solve? What challenge lingers from our last meeting? What hunch are you trying to confirm? Why did you choose to attend this event or class? What do you want to learn from and offer to members of this event?”
• Example information-sharing prompts include: How do you keep your documents, notes, and resources organized for your thesis/dissertation? What do you like best about this system, how do you use it, and what does it enable you to do? What do you know now about organizing & managing sources that you wished you had known earlier? What’s one thing you’d like to learn about how to organize and manage sources?
• Provide space for participants to mill about to find partners, then ask them to pair up
• In each round, give 2 minutes for each person to answer the questions (a total of 4-5 min. per round)
• Repeat this process for 3 rounds.

Products Generated

• None, just discussion among participants.

Reference

Liberating Structures

Additional Information

• This could also be modeled after a Speed Dating event, with 3 to 4 smaller questions over 10 minutes between pairs of participants. Each pair would answer the provided question prompts (provided on a screen or on printed slips of paper), then rotate to another participant and repeat the prompts.