If you’re stuck, mix it up: How (and why) to have an “interesting” conversation

At TEDxSanDiego, everyone took part in a novel experiment designed to track conversations throughout the day, partly to encourage the speakers, audience, performers and sponsors to mix and mingle in new ways, and partly to look at how the interactions at a TEDx event might be different from traditional networking. What kinds of questions would lead to the most “interesting” conversations? And, what can business leaders learn from an informal social experiment dedicated to tracing the intersections of people at a conference?

Jack Abbott (TEDxSanDiego) and Marty Cooper (speaker) engage in an interesting conversation

Business leaders who are stuck can solve problems by not focusing directly on their problems and instead focusing on discovering new insights from experts in other fields.

Here’s the in-a-nutshell version:

Lesson #1: Creating a breeding ground for “interesting” conversations involves some engineering of diversity—gather people together with the specific purpose of cross-disciplinary expertise.

Lesson #2: Putting yourself into a discovery mode, where you’re learning about a new field, creates a different spark than a networking mode or a day-to-day, problem solving mode.

Lesson #3: Business leaders can benefit from this spark of discovery—by opening themselves up to new insights about trends, shifts in customer preferences, and new technologies and products on the horizon. [For example, if you’re working on software solutions for schools, talk to a 10 year old about what games they’re playing.]

Interesting conversations can become the catalyst for corporate insight.

How to Engineer Interesting Conversations

How do you have an “interesting” conversation these days? How do you put yourself into a situation where you’re learning not telling? How can business leaders apply the results of the TEDxSanDiego informal experiment?

For corporate teams that are stuck and looking for new direction, the TEDxSanDiego experiment offers an interesting insight into a powerful skill that any business leader can use to expand his / her perspective. Here’s how it worked:

1. Everyone at the TEDxSanDiego conference was asked to list the topic they were most passionate about: Technology, Entertainment, Design, Entrepreneurism, Innovation, Community, Sustainability, Philanthropy. The audience and speakers were selected to represent a good cross-section, to make sure there was representation in the room from every field of interest.
2. Throughout the day of programming (22 speakers, performers, videos) everyone was asked to interact with people they didn’t know already and to name 3-5 people they didn’t know prior to the event with whom they engaged in an “interesting conversation” throughout the day.
3. James Fowler, Robert Bond, and Chris Fariss (the team of researchers from UC San Diego) mapped the interconnections.

The assumption had been that some patterns would emerge, with the most likely outcome being that people would group according to the birds of a feather rules—people with similar interests would gravitate toward each other–the way that jocks, debate team members, and drama club thespians would interact at a high school reunion.

And the answer is…no interaction pattern is a significant finding.

At TEDx San Diego, something very interesting happened. At the end of the day, no pattern emerged (see the map below.)

James Fowler's Map of "Interesting" Conversations

Technology folks mixed with Philanthropy folks. Ecologists linked up with Entertainers. Innovators connected with community organizers. The data looked absolutely nothing like the high school reunion of stereotypical cliques.

Instead, the array of conversation mapping looked like 52-card pickup.

And, people found those cross-expertise conversations extremely interesting.

The data array looked like 52-card pickup

Let’s remember that the Conversation Mapping experiment was designed to encourage cool discussions during breaks. And let’s remember that the TED conferences are specifically created to encourage cross-disciplinary thinking. So, the deck was stacked a bit.

But, it got me thinking.

Are there some times when we, as business leaders, need to shake things up a bit?

Are there times when we’re out of touch with trends and need to get together with some new people and enter “discovery mode”? Are there ways to orchestrate a setting where we interact with a diverse collection of people with very different perspectives from ours, and ask great questions, listen with tremendous interest, and learn about fields that are totally outside of our day to day knowledge base?

What was the best way to engage in these “interesting” conversations?

Follow these steps to broaden your horizons:

1. Think about your hunches about where you’re currently challenged in moving your business forward. (For example, how to build healthcare facilities smarter and better in the future.)
2. Envision a group of people whose perspective could add insight (For example, bringing in an expert from Qualcomm to talk with your healthcare architects.)
3. Engage in “interesting” conversations, where you discover what’s keeping them up at night, what’s exciting them, what they see on the horizon in their world.
4. Take it all in. Sleep on it. Don’t focus on the problem at hand.
5. Eureka…you’ll have an insight in a few weeks based on seeds that were planted during these interesting conversations. (For example, wireless innovations could lead to remote diagnostics and a redesign of your laboratories.)

If you’re stuck, mix it up.

Eminem: Mix 'Em Up

MIX ‘EM UP

Eminem

Big and some Pac and you mix them up in a pot

mix them up in a pot, mix them up in a pot

Take some Big and some Pac and mix them up in a pot

mix them up in a pot, what the f- do you got?

(Fifty!)

It’s Big and some Pac n u mix em up and you got, juggernauts of this rap sh–, like it or not