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Lee Gimple

Lee Gimple

Founder and principal of Better Meetings; meeting facilitation, design, and training expert based in Washington, DC specializing in conference engagement and organizational meeting improvement.

Jul 22, 2026

12:59
Yeah, I'd love, Lee, if you could rattle off a couple of those alternative session formats that maybe some of our listeners haven't heard of.
13:08
Yeah, I mean, I'll maybe not pull lots of super exotic ones, but I mean, I could be here all day.
13:14
But I mean, I love the idea of saying we've done... lectures we've done panels what else is out there and and i think also when people say oh but we do round tables i will say to them okay but you know what kind of round tables have you done and it kind of blows people's minds because they're like i don't know round tables we put people at tables they talk and then they will often say and it didn't go very well and i go and i know the answer i go why don't you know describe it for me and they say well we've got these big 10 person tables and we put 12 people there and then we give them about 20 minutes and we tell them the topic is ai and then people don't tend to love it and you're like well it's too many people in too small or in too short a time on too broad a topic and without enough structure and whatever so you know, we can fix that.
14:02
So one of them that I borrow also from Liberating Structures is called Conversation Cafe.
14:07
It's similar to a World Cafe, which probably some folks have heard of.
14:12
And the secret to conversation cafe is it's four rounds.
14:17
And you're, you tend to be at smaller groups.

15 MINS LATER

29:05
I want to know, for the sake of time, do you have a, it's probably hard to pick a favorite child, Lee, but is there one that either you find yourself reaching for again, again, or maybe one that would surprise our audience or a favorite if you have one from your cards?
13:45
But what are some, we talk about breaks, but where are these other leaks where attendee energy and engagement are just getting drained away in event agendas?
13:53
Yeah.
13:53
I mean, the biggest one, the most common one, the thing that probably gets built into every event over and over again is individual presentations, PowerPoints and panels.
14:05
And I don't want to tell people I'm against presentations and panels, but I'm working with a client now that has basically, it's an annual conference.
14:15
It's a relatively small community and they go from, it's like eight in the morning until five in the evening.
14:20
And I think it's like eight straight back to back to back panels with big groups of people.
14:25
And panels are fine.

12 MINS LATER

26:11
What's like a good, like a one change they can make that you think will really impact the attendee experience in a positive way?

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