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Creativity is the string that weaves through most (if not all) facets of life. As a facilitator, you design workshops that bring people together around a specific theme. If you think about it, workshops are a lot like parties, and every party needs good music. In many ways, facilitators are similar to DJs because they both create an experience for a group of people in hopes that it moves them from the mental place they were before to the new and refreshed place they are now.

I wanted to explore the analogy of designing workshops like a mixtape further, so I invited Howard Gray onto workshops work. Howard’s work focuses on “amplifying creative people and businesses to increase discovery, access, connection, and opportunity.” 

Howard and I talked about what facilitators can learn from DJs about workshop design to create even better workshops that participants will remember for a lifetime.

Find out about:

• What you can learn about workshop design and facilitation from a DJ
• How to design a workshop like a mixtape
• Why you should pre-plan your workshops but be open to adjusting quickly when necessary
• Why you need to focus on the experience you create for participants
• What makes a great mixtape and how you can translate that to a fantastic workshop design
• How the movie storyboarding exercise works
• How to get better at “reading the room”

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Questions and Answers

[01:26] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[03:26] If you had to put a hashtag on your own forehead, what would it be?

[04:32] What did you learn from your DJ career about workshop design or facilitation?

[08:56] To what extent does a DJ adjust their set to fit the room?

[11:10] What would make a workshop fail?

[13:28] What is your strategy to prepare for this diversity that you will face?

[15:36] Do you research the groups you’re facing?

[18:12] What do you think is more important, the facilitation, or the design aspect?

[24:31] What makes a good mixtape and how can you translate that to a good workshop design?

[29:46] With the shift from offline meetings to online meetings, did you adjust the design of the sequence with more contrast or less contrast?

[32:52] How can we expect someone to make the mental shift just by putting a different URL in the browser?

[35:55] What is your favourite exercise?

[40:35] How would the world of facilitation look if more facilitators would master the craft of a DJ?

[44:28] When you say, “reading the room,” do you think it’s based on intuition or is it something facilitators can learn to do?

[50:03] What do you hope listeners will take away from our conversation?

Links:

• How to DJ properly by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton

Connect to Howard:

• Howard’s website
• Howard’s LinkedIn
• Howard’s Twitter

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/