with my initial experiences gathering perspectives in my role as a Community Development Leader, I was hired to facilitate an assortment of events, with 50 to 100 people, in which a mixed group of stakeholders, with different needs and agendas, needed to agree actions. While tackling subjects such as local economic development, policy, strategic plans, health spending, etc., I constantly leveraged the conversation power of the facilitation tool “35.” It consistently created great insight and the necessary buy‐in for whatever actions resulted from the gathering.
This was my foundational experience of scaling conversations: Anyone can repeat it at a face‐to‐face event with a stack of recipe cards and a pen for everyone. I recommend changing one aspect of the instructions you can find online: Instead of having pairs of people debate the cards and agree how to distribute points, simply instruct everyone to rate their thoughts on a scale of one to five based on how strongly they agree (one = strongly disagree and five = strongly agree). This maintains the feeling of safety for the participants (the first hierarchy level of scaling conversations) and leads to a better group answer.
Moving scaled conversation into an online environment may have seemed like a natural progression to some, but it wasn't to me. I wasn't a “software sort of guy” and strongly believed in the power of being in the room with other humans; to look one another in the eye as ideas about the future were discussed. But my friend Lee White, former Executive Director of Outward Bound BC, observed “35” in action. He told me that a connection of his, Jim Firstbrook, had recently read James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds. Jim and his software development team had taken an angel investment from their former boss Amos Michelson, CEO of a BC company called CREO. They were apparently trying to build crowd wisdom software by aggregating ratings on electronic sticky notes in a similar way to my facilitation process.
I was skeptical, to say the least. But Lee was persuasive and resolute that there was power in the idea. He convinced me we should meet with Jim to share ideas at his upcoming launch event.
I learned later from Jim that, when Lee saw this potential, at the same time he had reached out to me he had also contacted Jim about this guy who drives around running meetings in remote communities using recipe cards. And Jim's reaction? Skepticism. Doesn't seem like a fit.
Fortunately, Lee succeeded in convincing both Jim and I to meet, and a few weeks later Lee and I traveled to Vancouver to attend the crowd wisdom software beta launch workshop. The rest, I suppose, is history.
After seeing this early attempt to facilitate conversations online I very literally dropped what I was doing and started working for the company, Thoughtstream, for free and for no equity. We had a simple agreement—to split the revenue from any early sales I could make as the beta product developed. I instantly both loved and hated what the team had built as their first guess at how to scale conversations online. But, one thing was clear to me: I felt passionate, and I wanted in.
The point of this is not what I did, but rather why. I had refined my face‐to‐face facilitation skills for nearly 15 years and had experience with many different methodologies beyond “35,” including well‐known gathering formats, such as World Cafe and Open Space. I was proud of my skill and my growing reputation but I was also growing increasingly disappointed by the limitations of face‐to‐face events.
Attendance at collaborative planning events was typically poor. Many of the people who did attend had good intentions but were also privileged and homogenous. Methodologies like the “35” game prevented or stymied big personalities and extroverts from taking over any agenda. But the results of employing “35” were ultimately still dictated by the people in the room. The staggering majority of people ultimately affected by the decisions of the small group were not able to be in the room. Every facilitator I knew was trying to attract more people, larger groups, to their events to avoid small loud groups taking over agendas about decisions that affected a lot of people. This same problem exists in nearly every organization in the world. Millions of people affected by decisions about training, funding, strategy, etc., have no, or very limited, ability to be a part of the conversation about those decisions. Much to the detriment of the outcomes.
The internet held amazing promise. Jim and the team had a huge idea. With the right structure anyone can go online to participate and share their diverse and independent thoughts, in any time zone, and even in any language. Algorithms can ensure all thoughts are seen by everyone. Digital “sticky notes,” and the thoughts on them, can be translated into any language in real time, and shared with people worldwide in a microsecond. The wisdom of the crowd can be leveraged to solve nearly any challenge an organization might face. While not everybody has perfect access to the internet, the number of people who do completely dwarfs those who can equitably participate in face‐to‐face conversations about issues that affect them.
A few years after Lee and I met with Jim and saw the beta software, we passed over a million people exchanging thoughts on our newly named platform: ThoughtExchange. We provided a platform for hundreds and even thousands to come together and share their voice to tackle all kinds of problems. I worked with a superintendent in a school district with 30,000 students. While hosting an online conversation on our platform the district officials had surfaced concerns and priorities from nearly 5,000 people. But in one school, in an extremely economically challenged neighborhood in the district, they only heard from about 30 parents. That particular school had hundreds of students, and therefore hundreds of parents. So, maybe 10% of people joined the conversation making decisions about their kids. Not so great, you might think. But here's the thing. I asked the superintendent: How many people from that school historically show up at town hall meetings or parent events? The answer: Between zero and four. But usually, unfortunately, zero. The school tries their best, but no one comes. So, a group of 30 people sharing their ideas sounds pretty good. Those same 30 people, gathered in a virtual room, would be quite a force for change if you could access all of their diverse and independent thoughts: With that amount of support, you have the ability to incrementally improve. At zero you don't. Even with the best facilitator on the planet.
The reason I devoted the last decade of my professional, and much of my personal, life to this software company, and eventually became the CEO, was not because of a newfound passion for software and solving technical problems. Luckily, we have other people in the company who have that. My passion has always been for facilitating ways to draw forth the voices of as many people as possible and to leverage that potential. And the internet is the way to do that. It's more inclusive, more equitable…and safer than any face‐to‐face meeting.
With our new digital working environments—rapidly transformed during the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic—every organization now has a unique opportunity to leverage the benefit of internet communication to scale conversations. It was a huge change for me, going from a face‐to‐face facilitator, an experiential mountain guide, a workshop creator, into an enabler of internet communication. I missed, and to some degree still miss, the energy of the room and the personalities of the people who would show up, however privileged and homogenous. But to deliver on the mission of bringing many voices to decisions there is only one choice that scales. The internet.
After the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota, people around the world protested to elevate the need to overcome the issues of systemic racism, police violence against Black people, and ultimately to ensure Black Lives Matter. Understanding their responsibility to be an ally and to participate in the dialogue, leaders from across many sectors held special events and scaled conversations on the ThoughtExchange platform. They asked questions such as: What can we do to improve our ability to be an anti‐racist organization and to ensure Black Lives Matter? How can we better support our Black team members? What can our organization do to overcome systemic racism and discrimination? What is on our hearts and minds as we work together to ensure Black Lives Matter? Thousands and thousands of people shared thoughts and considered the thinking of one another as their organizations promised action and deepened their commitment to overcoming racism against
