If you've been following the development of Creating the Future's first-ever conference (in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations – PANO), you know that this event is a demonstration project. The goal of this demonstration / experiment is to explore how an educational conference can help to accomplish long term goals beyond the conference itself.
The outcomes we’ve been aiming at have the potential to make a huge difference across the whole state:
• Build trust relationships
• Build upon the wisdom in the room
• Create and work towards a shared vision of what is possible
But without clear intent to accomplish those outcomes, they are just words on a page. If we really want to see stronger trust relationships in communities, where people are participating with their wisdom and their resources and their whole selves; if we want to see all of that effort aimed at a shared vision for what is possible – it will take more than just a 2-day event.
We’ve spent so much time planning and implementing the myriad moving parts of the conference itself. You can see some of the results of that on the registration page here.
With the conference itself moving along at a rapid clip, two big questions remain:
1) How will we evaluate the long-term success of this event, not just at the end of the conference, but into the future, as people return to their communities where the real work will begin?
2) How can we ensure that the conference is, in fact, a beginning, and not an end unto itself?
Today (Wednesday, April 2), we will tackle the second of those questions. (Not to fret, we are gathering our evaluation team as this is being typed, with a meeting hopefully coming next week. Subscribe here to be notified of that meeting!)
The meeting will occur at Noon ET right here. To participate via Twitter, tweet to the hashtag #CTFuture. We hope to see you soon!