Adding a Discussion Group to your IPC

This post will be a short one.  We've talked about Salons as a type of event. Salons usually follow an initial topic, but tend to be unstructured to allow conversation to flow freely. You're supposed to go off on tangents, or totally off topic. The talk is open-ended and organic.

A Discussion is almost the opposite. It is a focused and structured talk on a topic. You can use an agenda to guide the conversation, and the goal is greater understanding or create synergy (to coin an old Stephen Covey word form the early '90s). A Discussion group would fit most types of IPCs, except for maybe a social IPC. I've had great success hosting Discussion groups, and the flow of ideas and useful perspectives has always been fantastic. I would recommend that you do at least one quarterly. People love to talk, and you usually leave a discussion with something useful to think about or to act on.

If you plan to do a Discussion, be prepared. Announce the subject matter in advance and come with an agenda to keep the discussion focused. Also carefully moderate the discussion. Make sure everyone involved has had an opportunity to speak, so it would behoove you to play communication traffic cop. Make sure that the stronger personalities do not overwhelm the softer spoken folks (who often have the best insights, btw). Also, have fun!