One technique we’ve used with moderate success is to pass a clipboard around. People can jot down notes, or conversational ideas that are tangentially related or unrelated. Sometimes that provides a convenient way for someone else to say “hey, what’s this thing you wrote down about?”.
It also could let you list your three things to talk about in a breadth-first manner rather than talking about each one sequentially.
It probably sounds like a better idea than it is in practice; the clipboard gets stuck when holders get distracted, or people still refrain from bringing things up, or whatever. But you might try it out anyway!
Idea related to the clipboard, but combined with poker chips:
There is a stack of blank note cards on the table, and several pens/markers. If there’s an existing discussion and you want to talk about an unrelated topic, you grab a notecard, write down the topic, and place it face up on the table. At any time, there may be several note cards on the table representing topics people want to talk about. Each person also has a poker chip (or a few) that they may place near a particular card, expressing their interest in talking about that topic. Poker chips are basically upvotes.
I like the index cards approach. I worry that the poker chips start making things distracting, which will discourage their use or reduce their effectiveness.
You’re right, I think poker chips is too messy. Since you already have pens right there, it’d be better for people to just write a little mark / star / [their name] on any card that they were interested in.
[Our informal team of students] gathered in numbers from 3 to 20, and we gradually came to just having an appointed scribe noting down everybody’s contribution and later mailing it to the participants and people who could not attend. You could directly tell the scribe there’s something you want to talk about or comment later via e-mail, if you thought you need time to organize your thoughts. Which you should note down if you don’t want to interrupt somebody regardless of whether you expect to be able to speak about them or not.
One technique we’ve used with moderate success is to pass a clipboard around. People can jot down notes, or conversational ideas that are tangentially related or unrelated. Sometimes that provides a convenient way for someone else to say “hey, what’s this thing you wrote down about?”.
It also could let you list your three things to talk about in a breadth-first manner rather than talking about each one sequentially.
It probably sounds like a better idea than it is in practice; the clipboard gets stuck when holders get distracted, or people still refrain from bringing things up, or whatever. But you might try it out anyway!
Idea related to the clipboard, but combined with poker chips:
There is a stack of blank note cards on the table, and several pens/markers. If there’s an existing discussion and you want to talk about an unrelated topic, you grab a notecard, write down the topic, and place it face up on the table. At any time, there may be several note cards on the table representing topics people want to talk about. Each person also has a poker chip (or a few) that they may place near a particular card, expressing their interest in talking about that topic. Poker chips are basically upvotes.
I like the index cards approach. I worry that the poker chips start making things distracting, which will discourage their use or reduce their effectiveness.
You’re right, I think poker chips is too messy. Since you already have pens right there, it’d be better for people to just write a little mark / star / [their name] on any card that they were interested in.
[Our informal team of students] gathered in numbers from 3 to 20, and we gradually came to just having an appointed scribe noting down everybody’s contribution and later mailing it to the participants and people who could not attend. You could directly tell the scribe there’s something you want to talk about or comment later via e-mail, if you thought you need time to organize your thoughts. Which you should note down if you don’t want to interrupt somebody regardless of whether you expect to be able to speak about them or not.