Starfish Taylor led an innovative Icebreaker (Family Vacations) to launch the meeting, create engagement, and set the stage for success. The icebreaker introduces compromise when vacationing with people with demanding and different needs. It was a key aspect of what was needed for a successful outcome to the workshop.

The main design started with a Scenario module, placing each participant in the year 2017 where the Digital Energy Conference 2017 (DEC17) was a tremendous success and asked how they achieved it. A round of tell-and-share produced emerging ideas, quick wins, key enablers, and barriers to overcome in order to achieve that vision. We held a Flash Storm which drew out reference points to benchmark conferences that the group thought represented success. Mixing it up again, we put participants “in-the-shoes-of” some of the main stakeholders of DEC17 such as attendees, sponsor organisations, and trade booth purchasers. We painted the landscape of what their needs and expectations were.

The grounding process started with a Flash Vision for success, with small teams describing their vision for the DEC17 conference. We built on that, with new teams tasked to dig deeper and define the vision and the strategy for each key component. Each team was given a different component that they individually chose to work on with a vote-with-your-feet module. Teams built how they interlink with the other key components and how their category fit into the overall vision.

To close, each team built a strategy to achieve the vision for their key component which included the action plan and steps needed. With a new vision in hand and the details around each main category, we then approached a final decision about how the 2017 conference would be managed to enhance member value and experience.

Achievements

The workshop achieved common agreement on roles and responsibilities between parent organization and region – this was key to future conference event success and to improving working relations. Key decisions were made that further supported an enhanced working relationship between the parties, ideas to foster member value surfaced, and the sponsor’s desired key outcomes this meeting were achieved.

Other Outcomes

The two groups left with a better understanding of the challenges each faced with the planning and organization around a conference of this size, and the 2015 core members of the organising committee agreed to remain on as volunteers for the 2017 conference.

Deliverables

With a new vision in hand and the details for each main category better understood, both parties had momentum and a plan for how future conferences would be managed to enhance member value and experience.