What I've Learned About Moderating Conversations (In The Metaverse) ??

Moderating conversations is an art, not a science.?

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It’s a stage performance for a live audience, and it needs to be treated as such.?

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And while the conversation MUST be authentic, it’s important to remember it’s theatre.

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It’s ALL about setting the tone.?

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It’s ALL about establishing the arc for the conversation.?

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And it’s ALL about evoking emotion - the hearts and minds of the speakers and participants need to be moved - they need to be made to feel - they need to be made to think.

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If you don’t get it right, the conversation will be boring, and it will only exist on the surface.?

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To do it well, the moderator must care deeply.?

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They must be curious, and they must genuinely want to hear from the speakers and guests - this cannot be faked.?

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The moderator must be prepared but must also be highly flexible - conversations are fluid, and one can’t control where they go no matter how hard one may try.?

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You have to have a game plan but also have to be willing to throw it in the trash…

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And you WILL throw at least part of it in the trash receptacle EVERY SINGLE TIME!

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The moderator always has to be grounded in the fact that this is a live performance, but it’s not like Saturday Night Live, where the actors act out the scripts - the arc of the conversation may take on an entirely new direction, again, whether you want it to or not.

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Because the process is so dynamic, it’s essential to stay grounded with the objectives.

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The objectives are to uncover how the group really feels about a given subject, why the topic matters deeply, how that topic can be examined “under the microscope,” and what the future could look like by moving forward (or not…).

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In order to go deep, the moderator has to give of themselves to the panelists and the audience - they have to be vulnerable - they have to invite dissent - they have to establish psychological safety - they have to listen INTENTLY.

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This is WHY moderation is art, not science.?

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For the last 7 months, I have been studying AND doing moderation through a conversation series Chris Moeller, and I co-founded in the #metaverse called “Inspired People, Inspired Places.”?

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IPIP is a round table series covering the future of: work, education, community, wellbeing and regenerative technology.

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We congregate inside the Orion Growth virtual coworking space (enabled by our amazing partners at Open Campus Community & Octosmos) to hear from leaders in their respective fields and then invite a collaborative, open forum discussion so that our audience can ask questions of our speakers and engage with each other to wrestle with the topic some more.?

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You might ask, why would we choose to do this in a virtual world instead of as a webinar, LinkedIn Live or even in person?

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3 reasons:

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1. Attention is hard to come by in 2023. And I don’t mean eyeballs on a social media post. I mean genuinely earning someone’s investment in a conversation. People are stressed the fuck out, pulled in a million directions both personally and professionally, controlled by their phones (pointing the finger squarely at myself!), and are generally bored of prevailing methods of coming together (including in-person!). Chris and I hypothesized that by choosing a venue that has more friction to participate (guests have to download Open Campus, build their avatar, learn how to navigate a virtual world and, in many cases, get security clearance from their employer to use the tech), perhaps we might earn the virtual “commute.”?
2. Inside most organizations, psychological safety is just a buzzword. We wanted to move the needle on this issue. We wanted to turn psychological safety into a verb, not a noun. We felt that the best way to ensure ALL participants felt at ease was to converse within a modality that puts everyone on the same playing field. A place where power dynamics could melt away, or at least have a lot harder time existing. Enter the metaverse.
3. Adults have a hard time having fun. Kids ARE fun. But for adults, it often takes drugs and alcohol for us to let our guards down with each other. We wanted to remind adults how to be kids. Games define the childhood experience, whether they be in-person or online. So we thought, let’s force adults to play games with each other while also going deep on topics that matter!

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After doing 12 IPIPs, we can confirm that all of our hypotheses are coming to fruition.

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Our speakers and guests have been giving us their all; we’ve all laughed, cried, told stories and expressed our fears and hopes for the future.

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Chris and I are very excited by the community we are building.?

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We are providing space, technology, hospitality and event services to a growing audience in a new modality, and we are unlocking use cases for the Future of Work / Living that few are paying attention to.?

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The metaverse often gets a bad name, but you know what?

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The office has a bad name, too!

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Space is just space.?

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It’s all about the reasons behind using the space that matters, and it’s all about how the community comes together to activate it that makes it worth returning to.?

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The hype for the metaverse and the office are on the same playing field…

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The hype is DEAD!

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Both are experiencing a dark winter right now…

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But that’s the best time to build!

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When the headlines are negative.?

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When the average person doesn’t care.

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I hope this article has piqued your curiosity, and if it has, I hope you’ll consider joining us for the next Inspired People, Inspired Places event on October 3, 2023, @ 12:30 PM ET.

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We will be joined by Chase Warrington + Sophie Bailey to discuss the Future of Corporate Retreats.

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And if I’ve REALLY piqued your interest, I am going to include an appendix of more information and videos for you to peruse on your own time.?

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Thanks for taking the time to get this far if you have!

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Dave

Appendix:

Here's a video I recorded at StartWell that explains more about IPIP

Here's the youtube recording of a session we did with Harmen van Sprang + Sarah Segrest on the future interplay between the Metaverse & The City - I opened this session with a poem about the meaning of life which brought us very deep, VERY quickly!

Here's the youtube recording of a session we did with Rowena Hennigan + Elodie Ferchaud entitled "The Future of Family" - I opened the session with a very moving video spoken directly out of my 5 year old daughter, Elle's mouth which really set the stage!

Here's the youtube recording of the first episode of Season 2 with Diego Borgo ?? + Anna Ladyshenski entitled "Community Building & Web 3.0" - I challenged both speakers to consider how the future of Web 3.0 & The Metaverse will impact the Future of Work - this was probably our liveliest Q&A session with a provocative statement to kick things off by Thomas Stat and some very vulnerable commentary from Sarah Segrest & Earl Hoeg about what it means to be an introvert vs. extrovert in a virtual world.

Here's the youtube recording of the latest session we did with Denise Brouder + Melissa Fisher, PhD entitled "How are people REALLY feeling?" - I got very personal out of the gate with this one and it may go down in history as our best session ever - highly recommend listening to this one!

Here's a post I wrote about 10 things I've learned moderating conversations from the metaverse.

Here's a post I wrote on revisiting our beliefs surrounding cutting edge technology.