Facilitation for the nation

Exciting times at the School of Communication Arts, as a halfcoachload of students were packed off to Newbury yesterday for the racing.

Oh, ok, it was for a Vodafone conference on privacy, where we had been assigned to lead Vodafone suits in sessions of creative brainstorming. We came out of it unscathed, but we learned a number of important lessons - the main one for me being that teaching is bloody hard. And teaching is what it was - leading a session and paying constant attention, processing everything given to you and never switching off, keeping your energy levels up and focusing your efforts on controlling the room.

I think I was lucky with my participants; although some were more vocal than others, no-one tried too hard to control the room or dominate the conversation - and conversely, no-one questioned my qualifications or the validity of the exercise. I understand that other groups weren't so lucky, and that Marc's techniques didn't always work as smoothly as we'd hoped.

Still, at least next time we have a better idea of what to expect - and will be a bit more prepared the first time the suits from Proctor & Gamble come to visit...