i think that a happy medium is getting small-group conversations (that are useful, effective, etc) of size 3–4 people. this includes 1-1s, but the vibe of a Formal, Thirty Minute One on One is a very different vibe from floating through 10–15, 3–4-person conversations in a day, each that last varying amounts of time.
much more information can flow with 3-4 ppl than with just 2 ppl
people can dip in and out of small conversations more than they can with 1-1s
more-organic time blocks means that particularly unhelpful conversations can end after 5-10m, and particularly helpful ones can last the duration that would be good for them to last (even many hours!)
3-4 person conversations naturally select for a good 1-1. once 1-2 people have left a 3-4 person conversation, the conversation is then just a 1-1 of the two people who’ve engaged in the conversation longest — which seems like some evidence of their being a good match for a 1-1.
however, i think that this is operationally much harder to do for organizers than just 1-1s. my understanding is that this is much of the reason EAGs (& other conferences) do 1-1s, instead of small group conversations.
i think Writehaven did a mediocre job of this at LessOnline this past year (but, tbc, it did vastly better than any other piece of software i’ve encountered).
i think Lighthaven as a venue forces this sort of thing to happen, since there are so so so many nooks for 2-4 people to sit and chat, and the space is set up to make 10+ person conversations less likely to happen.
i know that The Curve (from @Rachel Weinberg) created some “Curated Conversations:” they manually selected people to have predetermined conversations for some set amount of time. iirc this was typically 3-6 people for ~1h, but i could be wrong on the details. rachel: how did these end up going, relative to the cost of putting them together?
(written v quickly, sorry for informal tone/etc)
i think that a happy medium is getting small-group conversations (that are useful, effective, etc) of size 3–4 people. this includes 1-1s, but the vibe of a Formal, Thirty Minute One on One is a very different vibe from floating through 10–15, 3–4-person conversations in a day, each that last varying amounts of time.
much more information can flow with 3-4 ppl than with just 2 ppl
people can dip in and out of small conversations more than they can with 1-1s
more-organic time blocks means that particularly unhelpful conversations can end after 5-10m, and particularly helpful ones can last the duration that would be good for them to last (even many hours!)
3-4 person conversations naturally select for a good 1-1. once 1-2 people have left a 3-4 person conversation, the conversation is then just a 1-1 of the two people who’ve engaged in the conversation longest — which seems like some evidence of their being a good match for a 1-1.
however, i think that this is operationally much harder to do for organizers than just 1-1s. my understanding is that this is much of the reason EAGs (& other conferences) do 1-1s, instead of small group conversations.
i think Writehaven did a mediocre job of this at LessOnline this past year (but, tbc, it did vastly better than any other piece of software i’ve encountered).
i think Lighthaven as a venue forces this sort of thing to happen, since there are so so so many nooks for 2-4 people to sit and chat, and the space is set up to make 10+ person conversations less likely to happen.
i know that The Curve (from @Rachel Weinberg) created some “Curated Conversations:” they manually selected people to have predetermined conversations for some set amount of time. iirc this was typically 3-6 people for ~1h, but i could be wrong on the details. rachel: how did these end up going, relative to the cost of putting them together?