Three Examples and a Prize

I touch down in Philadelphia in about 30 minutes and am looking forward to exploring this historic and world-class cultural city before the conference kicks off with the opening luncheon plenary on Sunday. I suppose it’s a bit odd for me to blog about a conference that hasn’t even started yet, but I was hoping to plant an idea before you begin attending sessions at the conference. As you attend plenary and concurrent sessions, site visits, and social hours, I invite you to notice and share examples of insights and experiences that transcend the traditional “expert at the podium” approach. Specifically, I encourage you to share examples of the following;

• interacting and learning from other conference participants in sessions that include audience participation, or in your conversations between sessions
• divergent viewpoints, even active debates, that deepen your understanding of some aspect of philanthropy, and maybe even change your perspective
• an unplanned, serendipitous interaction that led to a new insight or new connection that deepens your understanding of the breadth and diversity of philanthropy.

I know that the Council has worked hard to refresh the traditional conference format and provide for the kind of interaction I mention in these examples. The agenda looks quite promising in this regard. As a communications professional, I’m pleased that they have recognized the power of multi-way dialogue and new types of sessions, including audience interaction and debates. (BTW, I hope they play the theme song from “Rocky” when the closing plenary debate begins. We are in Philadelphia, after all!)

So, what’s the prize, you ask? Well, it turns out I have an ulterior motive with this post. (My colleagues will warn you to watch out for my ulterior motives.)

I’ll be helping plan next year’s annual conference, and we hope to push the envelope even further in regards to interaction, use of social media and technology, and tapping the wisdom of the audience as much as the wisdom of the official speakers. So, whoever shares the best example of any of the types of experiences listed above—audience interaction, real debate, serendipitous connections—and has an idea for expanding that type of experience at next year’s conference, we will fast track your idea right to the planning committee to turn it into a real, live session next year.

Okay, so that’s not quite as exciting as the X Prize or an Emmy, but hopefully it’s enough to get you to share an idea or two. Plus, the real prize will be an even better conference in 2012 for you and your colleagues.

So I invite you to leave your ideas as comments to this post. Let’s also get the conversation going on Twitter. I’ll post a link to this blog on Twitter (@DanielOlias) and use the hashtag #2012Ideas. When you leave a comment, post it to Twitter as well and use that hashtag. We should also use the hashtag for this conference, #2011Annual. If you don’t tweet, I’ll check for comments and post them on Twitter as they come in. I look forward to spending some time with all of you over the next few days!

Daniel Silverman is director of communications and corporate secretary for the James Irvine Foundation

[This post originally appeared on Philanthropy411]