I partnered with Workshop in September 2024 to moderate two roundtable discussions at their inaugural BrightSide conference — an employee communications and culture conference.

Event type: Roundtables (2 60-minute sessions)

Topics covered: Creating engaging internal presentations (communications topic) and encouraging risk-taking and experimentation to foster growth (culture topic)

Attendees: Internal communicators, HR leaders, and employee experience professionals

How we connected: I reached out to Jamie Bell at Workshop, to thank her and the team for all of their free resources I used over the years and to express interest in working together; Jamie introduced me to Kelsey Kingdon to discuss BrightSide

Kelsey Kingdon invited me to moderate two roundtables at BrightSide: one on communications and one on culture. Workshop provided a list of topics for moderators to choose from for each theme area. Upon choosing and confirming topics, Workshop allowed moderators to design the roundtable experience for their fellow attendees. The goal was to create engaging, open conversations around communications and culture and to equip BrightSide attendees with new ideas to experiment with in their work. 

With 45-60 minutes for the conversation, I sought to structure the discussion in a way that would allow me to: 

• Create an environment in which attendees would feel comfortable sharing their experiences openly
• Develop enough of a structured approach that I could facilitate the conversation with ease while leaving enough space for conversation topics to emerge throughout the process
• Create a list of discussion questions for the conversation, and provide a physical copy of the questions so attendees can continue the conversation with their teams and other communicators
• Keep the BrightSide theme and branding consistent to create a cohesive experience for conference attendees

With these goals in mind, I developed an outline for the conversation as follows: 

1. Light introductions and ground rules (~5 minutes)

2. Large bank of discussion questions for the bulk of the conversation (~45 minutes)

3. Quick end-of-session wrap-up

Here are some ways I leaned in to make the experience an enjoyable one:

• I designed the event to accommodate different processing and participation styles. I created a physical handout for the processors and quiet thinkers to have somewhere to digest information outside the conversation, and for everyone to have something to remember the conversations by. It contained:
  • Ground rules for the conversation
  • A list of some of the discussion questions from my large bank (some we discussed, others we didn't get to, but participants could easily take the questions back to their teams)
  • Plenty of space to write and take notes throughout the conversation

• I kept my handout design consistent with BrightSide's branding for a cohesive experience. Many moderators provided physical handouts for their sessions, including design and branding materials from their consulting firms and businesses. Instead, I chose to keep my handouts consistent with BrightSide's branding and kept self-promotion minimal. 

• I documented some real-world examples of successful internal presentations and experimental processes to share. In moments where the conversation fell quiet as participants considered the question, I presented real workflows and examples from my in-house communications experience to offer tactical suggestions to try.
• I paced the conversations based on the energy. One roundtable session occurred pre-lunch, and the other, later in the day, shortly before the end of the conference. I adjusted my second session to a slower pace, given the natural fluctuation in attendees' energy after a long, fun day.