How to use breaks by design for stronger community connections?
In short: the workshops and talks are just to excuse to bring people together. The breaks are where the magic happens. Add a lot of breaks and make them longer.
Conferences and community events have a weird dynamic. People are attracted to them for the content, but what makes the most difference for people is usually not the content, but the interactions they have with other community members in the breaks.
This means to me two things:
- Add more breaks: add as many breaks and moments of community encounters as possible.
- Make the break longer: instead of a 10 minute break, make them 20 or minutes. Instead of an hour lunch break make it one hour thirty.
That timing is always culture depend. If the usual lunch break .ois two hours in your culture, then make it 2 hours and thirty minutes.
The other aspect to consider is that we still need to make sure that the breaks don't feel way too long. Remember the early motivation of getting "enough content" needs to be covered, even when we know it's not the part that has the deepest impact.
Like good parents, we hide the veggies.
This article was written on a refurbished Remarkable II tablet with a type folio cover. The illustration was made drawn by hand on the same tablet.If you are curious you can download the original note below.
