These great tips for making boring conference/meeting space more conducive to creative thought come from Eva Niewiadomski, founder of Catalyst Ranch (an absolutely amazing conference space in Chicago where we hosted our first LexThink!):
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Bring a small boom box and a couple of homemade CDs with an eclectic and exoticly wild mix of music to set the mood for the meeting. Try to pick music that most people are not familiar with, but that is energetic.
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Use an unusual noisemaker to get people’s attention or to tell them when to start or finish an exercise (ie. bike horn, rattle, maracas, dinner bell, gong).
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Set up a station near the door where participants create their nametags instead of using preprinted or standard issue nametags. Provide them with different colored markers, stickers, mini-stamper markers and tell them to have some fun.
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Have the group actually create something during the icebreaker exercise that will give the room some character.
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Drape a few feather boas over several of the chairs.
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Place various ties, hats and wigs around the room and on the chairs.
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Bring small nerf guns and hoola-hoops.
Eva also suggests a few things to place on the tables:
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Pipe cleaners in cool containers
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Play-Doh
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Small etch-a-sketches
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Funny rubber noses
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Containers of crayons, coloring pencils and colored markers/funky colored pens
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Small mazes, puzzles
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Bowls of wild mixed candies and chocolates
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Yo-Yos
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Interesting books and magazines with lots of pictures
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Postcards you’ve received over the years
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Coloring books
Finally, Eva shared a bunch of “icebreakers” to use to start a meeting. My favorite? A backwards spelling bee:
Compile a list of reasonably common words with over 8 letters. Place them each separately on a colored index card. Give a pile to each team. Each team goes one at a time and is allotted 3 minutes in which to correctly spell as many words backwards as they can. One team member is in charge of reading off the words and each team member must take their turn. Of course, no pencils or paper are allowed.
