You want the people at your conference, congress, summit or event to make new connections, learn and have a brilliant experience, leaving enlightened, energised and feeling inspired to act. Important gatherings can be, do and achieve more. Like these ProMeet facilitated events:
Global medical meetings summit
The Professional Convention Management Association enhances the effectiveness of meeting planners through delivering innovative education. See more>
Facilitation of: The a global summit
Duration: 3 days
Number of participants: 26 industry leaders
Facilitating the worlds best meeting planners
Learning about innovation and participation strategies In November 2015 a group of some of the world’s most respected meeting planners, responsible for delivering large scale medical conferences, (c 5000+ participants) gathered in Scotland for a three day summit.
The two aims were for participants to assess the suitability of Scottish venues for their events, and learn about and create innovation and participation strategies for future congresses.
During the three days of the summit ProMeet facilitated five learning workshops. The learning journey began by asking participants to share the challenges they faced and to identify the current reality of the large scale medical meetings industry.
Supported by two external speakers Dr Bertalan Mesko and Hamish Taylor, participants created scenarios for future conferences, and then used the challenges, scenarios and speaker inputs to consider and develop ‘take-home’ strategies to innovate with their teams and conferences.
Results Each of the five learning sessions created a set of written, photographic and video outputs. These insights along with photos from the event became a 362 page PDF book, so participants could literally take-home their new strategies.
A shorter version of the book “WE INNOVATE” (without participant content) can be seen here.
Recommendations
Sean Blair is one of the finest program facilitators I've ever had the pleasure of working with. He is amazingly thoughtful in his approach and his preparation is impeccable.
Our audience of program and event organizers is a tough one, yet Sean managed to keep them engaged and thinking through a long three day trip. I would highly recommend his work to any organization/company looking for results. Kelly Peacy, CAE, CMP Senior Vice President, Education & Events Professional Convention Management Association
Sean Blair raised the facilitation bar to a level I had not previously experienced. Prior to the PCMA Global Medical Meetings Congress in Scotland, we met several times via Skype.
He was always prepared and asked thoughtful and insightful questions to ensure he understood PCMA's needs as well as attendee's expectations. This was a high-level group of association professionals who have "seen" everything.
Their praise for Sean was high and universal. He is creative, professional and in tune with his audience. I recommend him without hesitation. Lauren Kramer, MTA, CMP Founder and Principal Meeting Priorities, LLC
An important part of this brief was to help senior industry leaders think differently about the challenges they face and get insight into how to innovate and what innovation could look like.
Accordingly we designed a programme that began by reflecting on common industry challenges and with the help of two inspiring world-class speakers we offered participants processes and new ways to see and understand current reality and future possibility.
Participants reported that the blend of processes had been refreshing, enlivening but most of all helpful in thinking anew.
“You did a wonderful job with our PCMA group, it was a great experience.”Deborah Sexton | President & CEO PCMA
European conference and workshop
Together We Move - Coca-Cola gather 160 grassroots sports activists from organisations all over Europe. The aim. To get more people more active. See more>
Facilitation of: Five workshops during a 2 day conference
Duration: 2 days
Number of participants: 160
Coke getting more people, more active.
Coca-Cola support hundreds of grassroots sports organisations all over the world. As part of a growing commitment to getting more people more active Coke bought 160 people from all over Europe to a two day event.
The event combined inspiring TED style talks in a traditional plenary session with five ProMeet workshops where the participants could interact with the ideas running though the conference and identify good ideas and best practice the whole network could use to get more people more active. A write up of this event is also on our blog.
Results Participants created fourteen PDF booklets containing insights and ideas to help grow the grassroots sports movement.
Recommendation
"I enjoyed working with Sean at Coca-Cola's ... Together We Move Event
Sean successfully implemented the ProMeet-workshop methodology which unlocked the great thinking of +160 participants from 22 countries.
Great outcome!" Wouter Vermeulen Corporate Responsibility Director, Health & Wellness - Coca-Cola Europe
Creating, leading and chairing big events
As the design director of the Design Council, ProMeet founder, Sean Blair began hosting big events in 1995. Asked by the RSA to engage younger fellows more fully in RSA life, he conceived "Where? The Future Starts Here".
Sean hosted 1100 people one Wednesday morning at the Odeon, Leicester Square to hear six speakers deliver TED style talks. Sean has designed, planned and hosted big events at the London Palladium, Saddlers Wells, London IMAX and the Tate Modern.
Nordic countries conference host
Medtronic’s yearly gathering with keynotes, panel interviews, a highly interactive ‘Medtronic World’ and patient interviews. See more>
Facilitation of: Nordic Kick Off Conference
Duration: 1 day
Number of participants: 350
Inspiring a regional team
Medtronic is the world's largest standalone medical technology development company famous for creating the worlds first battery powered pacemaker.
This conference reported on the last years headline results, shared the key strategic aims of the year ahead, deepened participants understanding of new technologies, and inspired participants with life-changing patient stories.
The conference was designed and delivered by the excellent Plus Agency and ProMeet’s founder, Sean Blair was the conference host, interactive session facilitator and interviewer of both the leadership team and the patients for whom Medtronic technologies had saved their lives.
Recommendation
“Sean Blair facilitated Medtronic’s Nordic kickoff meeting in Copenhagen in June 2016.
350 colleagues from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the Baltic countries participated. Sean did a great job.
He was well-prepared and managed to lead panel discussions and interviews on complicated healthcare topics. We really appreciated Sean’s professional, empathetic and humoristic way to engage the audience.” Marianne Reedtz Sparrevohn Sr PR & Communications Manager, Medtronic Nordic, Baltic and Poland
European leadership conference
DENSO. A global manufacturer of automative parts. Once a year their top European leaders gather. ProMeet designed and facilitated this conference for 82 leaders. See more>
Facilitation of: A yearly leadership conference
Duration: 1 day
Number of participants: 82
You and DENSO. Leading together
Globally, DENSO operate in over 35 countries and have 140,000 + employees active in all aspects of the automotive business - sales, product development and design and manufacturing.
Once a year DENSO Europe bring its senior leaders from 10 different countries together for a leadership conference. This is an important time for EU leaders to work together to plan key activities required to meet shared goals and financial targets.
It is costly to gather a senior group and so in addition to the communication and understanding outcomes the conference sought, we also gave leaders experience of ProMeet tools to use back in their countries, thus the conference was also a leadership development exercise. See photos on our blog.
Results Participants reviewed the three year policy and collectively identified the biggest challenges DENSO would need to overcome to implement the strategy.
Against the three key leadership priorities they created 18 proposals and 9 project plans to help DENSO better innovate, communicate and collaborate.
Recommendation
Dear Sean, Already, almost one week has passed since our 2014, Leadership Conference, You & DENSO: Leading Together. I appreciate that as a team we managed to achieve a lot.
DENSO is a very culturally diverse and complicated organisation, and sometimes it is not so easy for us to understand each other.
I think that your flexibility really helped pull our leadership conference together and be a very successful event for the participants and all those involved in the design team. I also felt that your new input, challenges to our accepted ways of thinking and facilitation skills, all contributed to the very positive end result.
The European and Japanese leaders liked your facilitation style, inviting inquiry, without setting the expectation of a right / wrong answer, the process of the gridcards / use of the ORID model, to help focus on our leadership priorities and your excellent adherence to time keeping.
Kind regards
Roberto Roberto Vitagliano Director, European Human Resources DENSO INTERNATIONAL EUROPE
Clarity in complex cultures
International conferences require extra care and thought to help people from different cultural backgrounds and with differing levels of language skills work together effectively.
In this assignment ProMeet also helped DENSO to communicate a policy that originated in Japan and required thoughtful translation to ensure wide understanding.
Global collective impact project
Experts from the fishing industry, scientific community, civil society & international institutions from around the globe met to launch the Global Ghost Gear Initiative. See more>
Facilitation of: The launch of a new global initiative
Duration: 2 days
Number of participants: 75
Working together - to reduce ‘ghost fishing’
Photos Ⓒ Joanna Randall/World Animal Protection and ProMeet
‘Ghost fishing’ is the result of what happens when nets are abandoned or lost at sea. The nets continue to fish and trap wildlife for many years, even decades later. Nearly half a million tons of ‘ghost gear’ is abandoned globally every year, so this is a complex system problem, which needs a co-ordinated multi stakeholder approach to to resolve.
Using a ‘collective impact’ approach the charity World Animal Protection bought together a community of organisations under the umbrella of the ‘Global Ghost Gear Initiative’ (GGGI) to build evidence, define best practice and inform policy, and catalyse and replicate solutions.
This was the second meeting of the founders of GGGI where the initiative was formally launched.
Results 12 best practice case studies were given, and the results of a years consultation exercise about the participation/membership system was shared. Using the scales of a agreement tool, participants gave enthusiastic support for the design of the constitution.
The GGGI steering group was appointed, following hustings and a vote.
Three working groups were formed, appointed chairs and co-ordinators, and developed draft 12 month plans.
Recommendation
Thank you again for your excellent work on the GGGI meeting.
Your advice on the agenda and your facilitation were both excellent.
We have received a lot of positive feedback on the meeting and in particular your facilitation.
Katherine George Project Manager – Global Ghost Gear Initiative World Animal Protection
Facilitation of Collective Impact
How stakeholders, with potentially very different ideas, perspectives and worldviews work-together is key to the success of collective impact projects. When big problems like ghost fishing cannot be solved by single organisations or partnerships the ‘relational is as important as the rational’. As Steven Covey suggests, ‘change happens ‘at the speed of trust’.
So collective impact is all about how people work-together and collective seeing, doing and learning is greatly enhanced with professional facilitation.
International conference
IMEX Frankfurt is the worldwide exhibition for incentives travel, meetings and events. Association day delivered expert input, networking and peer to peer learning. See more>
Facilitation of: A yearly association conference
Duration: 6 hours
Number of participants: 320 from 40 countries
Association Day: Next Generation Associations
Every year over three hundred association executives from 40 countries gather the day before IMEX Frankfurt to learn from experts and each other during ‘Association Day”.
This year IMEX partnered with IAF (the International Association of Facilitators) in order to give participants the best experience in an Association Day yet.
ProMeet founder Sean Blair took the lead in this partnership on behalf of IAF. He designed and facilitated the event with support from a team of four IAF facilitators.
Process In plenary one, participants worked together to identify the biggest challenges associations face.
Nine, one hour facilitated and interactive workshops followed in two parallel time slots.
We covered sponsorship, strategic positioning, crisis management, customer data, boards, trends, working with millennials, communication and innovation.
In plenary two, participants were offered a synthesis of the challenges exercise, and took summary points from each of the nine sessions.
Finally we develop insights about 'next generation associations' using LEGO Serious Play.
Results/outputs - Identification of the four biggest challenges associations face.
- Participants insights from nine breakout sessions.
"IMEX has recently partnered with the IAF (International Association of Facilitators) and Sean has been the driving force behind our collaboration on the IMEX Association Day programme. Sean has almost single-handedly taken us on a journey from wish list 'what if's' to help improve our programme to a reality of total delegate engagement and interaction.
Sean also introduced us to Lego® Serious Play® and using Lego models our group were able to develop ideas for the next generation associations and have a great deal of fun in the process!" Natasha Richards Manager, Partnerships & Association Relations, IMEX Group
"In August 2014 Sean was one of four of us from the IAF (International Association of Facilitators) who met with IMEX to see if and how we could work together.
Sean volunteered to lead preparations for IMEX 2015 which was to be the first expression of the formal partnership agreement.
Although there was more work involved than we imagined, Sean was unfailingly creatively and energetically delivered at every stage of the process.
In so doing he has demonstrated what the power of facilitation can achieve and has set a new benchmark of excellence in engagement.
Sean you have exceeded my expectations and it has been a pleasure working with you." Martin Farrell EMENA Regional Director International Association of Facilitators
Evaluations from previous years showed participants wanted more interaction with speakers, content and each other. Accordingly we facilitated a day that put the participant at the centre of the activities with generally no more than 10 minutes spoken input before a facilitated intervention.
Professionally facilitated events lead participants on journeys of discovery, insight and learning, creating better experiences and better outcomes for all involved. ProMeet is proud to have facilitated this event on behalf of IAF.
Global congress
The International Sport and Culture Association held a congress for its members and host country partners. In 2014, 300 delegates met in Rome. See more>
Open cities – Active Cities, is ISCA's dream. Unfortunately, the global trend of urbanisation is creating many barriers for an active lifestyle, with only little room for recreational physical activity and sport. The Move Congress is a state of art event in the Sport For All (SFA) sector, bringing politicians, decision makers, local and international organisations, managers and practitioners together for three days. Innovative sessions and methodologies and an extra focus on being physically active during the congress, ensures a great level of interaction among the participants.
Results The congress combined traditional (presentations) and innovative methods (using the city as a workshop location) and participants created six ideas banks during the three days of the congress.
90% of participants said they got new ideas and inspiration from the lively format of the congress.
Recommendations
“Sean makes you feel comfortable as conference organiser. He is professional and prepared.
He is focused on the conference aims and knows how he wants to get there.
Sean can walk the thin line of being a strong and connecting moderator without being the centre of the conference”.
Mogens Kirkeby President of INTERNATIONAL SPORT & CULTURE ASSOCIATION
"Our work with Sean Blair and ProMeet aimed to develop the MOVE Congress 2014 program attractive, interactive and special.
We were thrilled when Sean implementation resulted great interactivity with clear thinking, energising inputs, and at the same time supportive for 300 participants and with a great fun.
It was not just facilitation of the MOVE Congress 2014, it was also his contribution to the event planning and to the Congress program.
What we appreciated most about working with Sean was his ability to cut through the predictable challenges of the event, keep everyone happy, and deliver the expected results." Saska Benedicic Tomat MOVE Congress 2014 coordinator
Creative - approaches
At the outset, ISCA asked for ideas about how to open each day differently. They wanted to energise participants and get them moving (it was the Move Congress) even in the limitations of a traditional lecture theatre.
We proposed singing.
In fact we went one step further and suggested that over the three days of the congress participants could sing and record the vocal part of an anthem that might become a musical asset for all to use and share. That's exactly what we did, you can read about using some as an energiser (and listen to the final track) on our blog.
National conference
The 'Next Generation Rail' conference, is for PhD students, young rail professionals and apprentices. The aim: to discover, showcase, network and learn. See more>
Facilitation of: Learning and insight
Duration: Two Hours
Number of participants: 150
Conference learning and insight using LEGO Serious Play
The three-day 3rd annual Next Generation Rail conference brought together 150 early-career researchers and young rail professionals to share knowledge and build skills they will use throughout their career in the rail industry.
Speakers come from across the globe and represented all parts of the rail sector.
On the final day, attendees spent two hours reflecting on their learning from the conference and representing their visions for the railway of the future. Participants modelled ways to increase capacity, improve environmental performance and enable better access to the railway for people with disabilities.
Results 150 individual models that showed personal learning, and 36 shared models to show ideas about the railway of the future. Activity on Twitter during and after the conference to help spread awareness of the conference.
Here's Will Baxter's video snippet shot during the presentations of the shared models:
"Hi Sean, Thank you very much for your contribution to the Next Generation Rail Conference!
I found the LEGO Serious Play session went really well and I heard lots of positive comments on the day. Thanks!" Giulia Lorenzini Partnerships Manager RSSB
Participants in this workshop used the first two LEGO® Serious Play® application techniques, building individual and shared models, as an introduction to LEGO® Serious Play®.
UK leadership conference
110 school leaders spend two days understanding the key challenges driving change and create ideas for field trials of new models of school leadership. See more>
Facilitation of: An innovation workshop
Duration: 2 days
Number of participants: 110
Next Practice in leading education
ProMeet helped plan and delivered an event which brought together over 100 school leaders to think creatively about the future of school leadership. The participants identified what they perceived to be the key challenges facing school leaders at local, national and global levels.
Having established consensus emerged around certain challenges the workshop then invited participants to work creatively in an open space technology workshop to begin establishing ideas that responded to the challenges. Participants developed 21 field trial ideas that were gathered together in an 89 page book, written during the workshop.
Results Participants created four booklets containing insights, challenges and ideas for field trials.
21 detailed ideas for field trials were presented on the last afternoon of the workshop.
Five groups and consortia of schools were selected by the Innovation Unit for further support to operationalise their field trial ideas.
Postscript
Working with the Innovation Unit for the next two years, we went on to facilitate three further rounds of Next Practice projects.
These workshops also produced a set of 4 'tool kit' publications to support next practice thinking in schools in the UK and overseas.
View the toolkit publication that arose from this workshop "Next Practice Leadership - Delta 6"
Recommendation
“This system provided the best structure for our meetings that I have ever seen.”
Mike Gibbons Innovation Unit
A creative approach to working together. Since 1989.
ProMeet founder, Sean Blair graduated with a first class honours degree in industrial design. He went on to be the first design director of the national body for design, the Design Council.
Sean was also a founder of the Service Design Network. He has worked with the NHS, airports, government departments, pharmaceutical companies and well known brands, helping groups of people work together to think differently and create new products and services.
Call Sean to discuss how he can help you, your team, and your stakeholders work together imaginatively.