Recently, I have been thinking about ways to make the Accelerator Workshop even more effective, enjoyable, and increase the number of attendees. One of the things I remember from Psych 100 is the idea of the Memory Palace, or the Method of Loci. I won't really go into it but I find the description on Wikipedia to be as good as any: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci
The idea would work well with Accelerator Workshops in that it would help attendees remember decisions that were made at the workshop (which could span days), because the experience of the environment would help them attach pieces of their memory to the place. Not only so, but it would help attendees remember the feeling of the workshop. Being locked up in a boardroom for three days straight can blur ideas after awhile.
It is a bit like a progressive dinner workshop or a pub crawl workshop, as my colleague Trevor said. So here is how it would work:
You would choose one venue for the day, such as an art gallery or science center. It should have meeting rooms, but also places to walk around, experience the environment, and places to relax, eat, and drink. You would then conduct your breakout and merge sessions in different areas of the building to help everyone anchor their thoughts to the places and objects around them.
If your workshop runs over a number of days, you may have an itinerary with different locations for each day. Say, Day 1 at your local art gallery, Day 2 at a city theater (with a team event at the end of the day!), and rounding up Day 3 at a historical site.
Cities where this would work well would have:
- Centralized great places (or an excellent transportation system)
- Great sites with meeting rooms and facilities (and already do team events)
- Where renting a space would not cost you an arm and a leg.
I can already think of a handful of cities where it would be great to conduct Memory Palace Accelerator Workshops, including (now these are places that I have been to):
- Hong Kong (centralized, great transportation)
- Washington DC (completely walkable)
- Seattle (the library!)
- Ottawa (like DC, walkable)
- London (interesting, but expensive)
- Toronto (walkable, cost effective)
- Copenhagen (walkable, centralized)
This means more logistics to plan and coordinate for an already-busy workshop coordinator (you), but I would be interested to hear about it if you try something like this!
Posted in Methods on April 11, 2007
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