The transition from face-to-face, to exclusively online and now hybrid has put enormous demand on city enthusiasts and actors to up their facilitation and engagement skills. In this session we will explore various tips and tops for facilitating in an ever changing world. Participants will practice some cutting-edge methods that engage the audience in a meaningful and productive way.
Host: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
The session Taste the Change, re-imagining facilitation for hybrid meetings in cities, hosted by Eddie Jjemba and Bettina Koelle from Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre explored new approaches to facilitation for optimising efficiency of hybrid engagements. The hosts unpacked how we can bring the “amazingness” of face-to-face conversations and the convenience of hybridity together in a changing world?. They initiated the session with brief introductions and an overview of some of the pros and cons of hybrid meetings and NB values to bring to such meetings. They were interested in gaining inputs from the participants’ past experiences with hybrid meetings through breakout rooms. There was a general consensus that hybrid meetings have its limitations: some voices get lost, there is a power imbalance between those joining in person and virtually, exclusionary to those who do not have access to technology etc.. One of the hosts, Bettina, explained that the biggest limitation to hybrid facilitation is our imagination, particularly as it is such a new means of engagement. The future of hybrid engagements is what we make it today. She proposes that we use our imagination as a means to make this new form of engagement as inclusive and fruitful as possible by using and experimenting with different facilitation techniques. She suggests the following tips for improved facilitation of hybrid facilitation: address power dynamics between those joining in person and those joining virtually; always have contingency plans; introduce audiovisual technologies to include all participants; use humor and visual communication creatively to make it fun and engaging from the get go.