The Hallway Track

Ask anyone why they returned and the schedule is never the answer. It is the excuse. The reason is the twenty minutes between sessions, standing near a coffee urn, talking to someone solving a problem you described badly six months ago.

Designing for the gaps

We widened the breaks this year — from fifteen minutes to twenty-five — and moved refreshments away from the session rooms so that people had to walk somewhere to get them. Both changes were unpopular in planning and vindicated in the feedback.

The measurable effect was that conversations lasted long enough to get past introductions. The unmeasurable effect is the one people wrote to us about afterwards.

Next year

We are keeping the longer breaks and adding a small number of unprogrammed rooms with nothing in them but chairs. No screen, no facilitator, no agenda. On current evidence, that is enough.