I’m really interested in ways people have started and moved from 0 to 1 as a facilitator with little to no existing network. Specifically, I am looking at brand strategy, but I imagine techniques for getting started could be used across different applications. One idea I have is to offer some free small workshops to get my name out there, get practice and hopefully good testimonials. Has that worked for anyone? Other ideas?

I’m coming from a design background and am interested in running brand strategy workshops using techniques from Facilitation Fundamentails while still providing creative materials. I also am excited by the value of helping teams get unstuck with other internal blockers with facilitation workshops. Has anyone else done brand strategy this way? Is adding internal team facilitation too different? Should that be under a separate brand/ webpage? Thanks for any feedback!

Hi all, I thought i'd share an interesting workshop I ran recently - hopefully it's helpful for someone else who has a similar challenge or brief! The client is a large charity and this was their brief: Produce a short vision statement for our future digital fundraising and engagement and the required transformation over our strategy period (they obviously shared context of their org strategy etc). I split this up into two stages: 1) Vision & 2) Required Transformation. Here are the exercises I ran: 1️⃣ Vision ➡️ Lightning Demos (this helped us focus on the market and the team created some really great How Might Wes). We clustered these to use as stimulus for the next exercise. ➡️ Vision Statement Drawing. People drew their vision statement and presented back to the group. I was mindful that if we asked people to write them they would get caught up in the language rather than the overall concepts. We asked them to share their vision and gathered the main themes. 2️⃣ Required Transformation ➡️ We then essentially did a Lightning Decision Jam which I don't need to explain! This was a fun one to run but I was very worried about timings, we did get everything done on time though which was a relief! I was constantly talking about pace and how it's going to feel like everything is going WAY too fast before and during the workshop and I think that helped a lot! They just could not get people together for longer but all worked out ok! I've had some really positive feedback from the client and recently ran a training session for them too so hoping to run more sessions with them next year 😁 Shout if you have any questions! 😀

I led a short workshop today to identify possible positioning statements for a university program. What I was reminded of was the importance of setting up the activity. I shared the positioning framework, how it is used in concert with crafting marketing messages, and shared a few examples. They had to guess the brands that aligned with the positioning examples, which made it more interesting than simply telling them. Examples also ensured they knew what the end point should look like. In 30 minutes we accomplished the goal of generating a number of possibilities and heard all voices. I ended with a dot vote which identified their top choices. Now we go into research mode with students to validate the internal perspective. In the past I had a tendency to move quickly into the exercise and people wouldn't engage to the same level as when I take time to set it up by showing them what the end point will look like and reinforcing the value of the activity. With clarity of the purpose and tangible examples of output, people stop questioning the point of the activity and dive in.