Creating More Engagement and Dialogue in Scientific Meetings

This year I have had the pleasure of working with DPAS (The Danish Association of Pathologists) in connection with their annual meeting. There are a lot of fixed elements in such meetings, e.g. general assembly, keynote speakers, scientific presentations, poster sessions etc.

Last year, we did an experiment with Open Space - this went so well, that DPAS wanted to push the envelope a bit further, this time by also re-engineering their poster sessions, and create a more engaging format. Thus, we created a Poster Space format as well as an Open Space format.

In this video you will get an idea what this format is all about

flow of the new Poster Space format is as follows:

1. Make pre-assigned small groups (5 in each group), which visit 5-6 pre-assigned posters - participants receive a card with their visits.
2. Each visit lasts 6-7 minutes, where the poster presenter makes a short intro, and there is time for dialogue in the small group.
3. When the bell rings, visit a new poster - all posters in a given group are located next to each other.
4. After this first round, visit with a new group.

There is no doubt that this novel format creates much more interaction between presenters and audience. Also, it opens the possibility of creating novel ideas, since the poster visitors get to visit posters that in all likelihood is not within their field of expertise.