Unexpected inspiration

What does innovation look like? Is anything ever really new?

I worked as a UNDP-contracted group facilitator last week at a conference in the UN administered buffer zone in “the last divided capital in the world”*—Nicosia, Cyprus.  But this was no ordinary conference with the usual speeches from the usual suspects and participants split between those madly scrambling to scribble down notes and ask the most intelligent questions during Q&A and those snoozing in the back rows and checking their email and Facebook accounts. This conference set out to achieve innovation, both in conference style and in the outcomes for its participants.  Was it successful? Judge for yourself…

I arrived to Cyprus in late evening on the Thursday before the conference, equipped with my usual enthusiasm for any kind of facilitation work and particularly excited to be working with participants hailing from a wide range of countries, from Romania and Bulgaria to Iraq and Egypt. It’s always a challenge and reward to work with diverse groups, and in this case, local experts with years of experience working in civil society. What I hadn’t expected was the inspired outlook I’d be holding with me as I left Cyprus 10 days later—inspired by the enthusiasm and forward-movement from the participant projects, inspired to strive for more in my own work, and generally inspired by a sense of hopefulness for the future of which I often feel bereft in this current state of American politics, world economy and the numerous violent conflicts world-wide.

The facilitation team

What came together to make it work? 

• Participants 
• Process 
• Money!
• Support--from the organizers and local hosts  
• A fabulous facilitation team and fearless team leader with more energy on three hours sleep as most of us have on eight
• And lots of caffeine for the rest of us...

The success of the conference hingled largely on the design and on buy-in from the entire organizing team, who put a lot of trust in all of us.  Borrowing on one facilitator's experience in the field of technology conferences including Random Hacks of Kindness, this conference artfully balanced cooperation with competition. 

The goals of the conference included inter-regional cooperation and sharing of knowledge between three regions--Central and Eastern Europe (post-Soviet and Warsaw Pact states), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and Cyprus, which as host was considered to be its own region.  We had 150+ participants (~50 from each region), all civil society leaders, and our goal was to get them from Point A [they have never met each other] to Point B, where they are collaborating on inter-regional project proposals (with representation for each region) to compete for six seed funding grants.  It was a tall order, but it happened, and only because had carefully planned out every second of each of the three days.

Power of One Ning site

It all started with the Ning, a great social networking platform where participants could start sharing ideas, connecting and even forming project groups pre-conference.  When the conference started on Day 1, we quickly moved them into smaller groups of 25-30, pre-arranged to ensure diversity of region, gender and issue area. After introductions in these groups, we brainstormed like crazy on the role of civil society in transitions and discussed at length what the priorities should be.  Reading this now that might not sound exciting, but the participants engaged in these discussions brought to the conversation lived experiences of revolution, of societal shifts and courageous activism.  In the afternoon, participants moved to issue-specific discussions, choosing to focus on topics like "The role of social media", "Youth empowerment" and "Public participation in influencing policy".  This was the time to think together with other experts in the field about what works and what doesn't and about innovative new ideas.  I heard a Palestinian woman complain that it was impossible  to change the Palestinian educational system and this was quickly countered by a woman from Lebanon who said "That's exactly what I'm working on--let's talk!"  Participants from Bulgaria shared best practices from their experiences with participants from Iraq and Cyprus.  And Egyptian activists talked over their ideas with activists from Bosnia. The magic was starting to happen. But we still faced what we knew was the crucial make-or-break point: The Sparks.

Spark presentation

Before breaking for the evening, we announced the idea of sparks--innovative ideas for change.  Participants who had spark ideas were to give a "spark presentation" the next morning at 9am, in order to convince other participants (at the very least one from each of the three regions) to join their spark groups, each of which would then turn into project proposals. Those with spark ideas were termed "spark champions" because it was their job now to "champion an innovative idea for change."  Spark presentations could be no longer than 5 minutes and were guided by a set of 20 slides that advance automatically every 15 sections.  After some initial concern (I'm being generous--there were some heated words exchanged!), the participants went off for the night to put together presentations. By the next morning, we had 28 of spark champions signed up, well above our target of 18.

Negotiations over a spark idea

After the presentations, we moved the group to a souk (marketplace) of ideas where the spark champions literally hocked their ideas. The idea was that if after an hour, a spark idea didn't have at least one participant signed on from each region, it would "burn out" and the group could join other sparks. At one point, recognizing he only had participants signed on from the MENA region and Europe, a spark champion stood on his chair and called out "I need someone from Cyprus!  Come join our group!" Upon entering the souk, some participants bee-lined for a spark and other milled around, inspecting the wares until they settled on one they liked.  Some sparks realized their ideas were similar or complementary and merge groups.  At the end of the souk, we were down to 20 ideas.

At the souk

Over the course of the next afternoon and the following morning, sparks turned into project ideas which become project proposals.  Groups submitted concept notes and came up with 5-minute presentations. And here's where the genius of the cooperation (within inter-regional project teams) and competition (for the grants) comes in. There were 6 total grants available, but 3 projects would be fast-tracked in the grant process by plenary vote. After the final presentations, each participant cast three votes, for their top three projects. Of course, many probably voted for their own projects, but then they had to cast two other votes for different projects for their ballot to be valid.  This countered the unfair advantage larger project groups could have over smaller ones. Concerned that some participants were already not convinced the process wasn't rigged from the start, we announced an open ballot-counting process, inviting any participants to effectively serve as election monitors. We weren't sure anyone would actually take advantage of this, but one participant actually came and video taped us counting the votes. Am I out there on YouTube somewhere cursing over someone's poor handwriting: "Is that a B or a P??"

Graffiti wall at the souk

By the end of the conference, the energy was high as participants waited to hear who had won the top three spaces for funding. A bus of participants had to leave for the airport before we were scheduled to announce the results to the large group so we made a compromise—I would follow them out to the bus and just as the bus doors were closing, I’d give them the results. I found myself with an excited and enthused group traveling home to Egypt and and one to Gaza. After a few wholehearted attempts to get me to spill the beans early, and when it became clear I was taking my marching orders to heart, we moved on to explore their takeaways from the conference. All were glowing in their feedback to me: “This was great”, “I loved it!” and “I want to do this again.” When two Cypriot police came scurrying over to us, concerned at the large suitcases a few participants were transporting out of the buffer zone and into the Greek Cypriot-controlled southern half of Cyprus, I started to explain that it wasn’t a problem, that they’d come from their hotel in Greek side and brought luggage into the buffer zone with them that morning since they were going straight to the airport from the conference.  One daredevil young Egyptian man said with a winning smile, “Excuse but we were just bringing in bombs in these suitcases.” I gave him a “it’s not the time for these jokes!” look and he laughed and let up.  The Cypriot police did not seem amused, but they let the group go.

I knew the process had worked when I told the bus group the results. The "bombs in these suitcases" young man was a member of the project group that won first place, but none of the others were in winning groups. It didn't seem to matter. They all knew they still had another month of developing a project proposal in the hopes of winning one of the remaining three grant spots, and they knew they had contributed to something greater--they'd shared their knowledge, made new connections and had a new experience.  No one could go home saying they spent three days at a conference in Cyprus sleeping at the back of a lecture hall.

Project group at work

To hear from participants directly check out these videos:
Sali (Egypt): http://youtu.be/RvW4CWAwLAw
Orestes (Cyprus): http://youtu.be/PEg21PQ63I8
Goran (Bosnia): http://youtu.be/h_n0armh9Kk 
Ellada (Cyprus): http://youtu.be/SKxggbJpo68

And for me?  Well I've come away from it with new inspiration and ideas and I met an incredible group of people--the fantastic facilitator group, the amazing staff of UNDP-Action for Cooperation and Trust in Cyprus, the incredible representatives from the Peace It Together network of Cypriot NGOs, and the inspiring conference participants.  And I have a bunch of new friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Maybe it doesn't really matter whether something is new or not.  It's the way one borrows ideas and uses them in new ways with new people and new places.  What's next?  Who will take the next step forward?

To read more about the Power of One conference, check out my fellow facilitator Helena's blog, Let Them Talk.

*This is said often but not exactly true. What are the other previously-divided capitals?  Berlin probably comes immediately to mind. No, check again. Bonn was West Germany’s capital city.