Insights on Meaningful Gatherings

Please join me in welcoming Priya Parker as the official opening speaker of South by Southwest 2022. Oh my gosh, bodies in a room. It is so nice to see you all. Priya, welcome to South by Southwest. Thank you for having me. It is a treat. In fact, you've been here for a few days, right? I've been here for a few days. My husband Anand and I arrived two days ago and we have had Miga's tacos and we have gone to the Broken Spoke and we spoke... I spoke at South by Southwest EDU yesterday, which was wonderful. And I'm so happy to see you all. I will just start with one anecdote, which is last year, when I was the closing speaker, Anand and I had a very different experience of a green room, which is what looked like a sealed Team 6 black box got shipped to our home. And our neighbors were like, what is happening in that apartment? And it took me about three hours to unwind everything. And I looked into a camera and spoke with many of you. But it is such a pleasure to see your bodies and your faces in this room. So thank you for being here. It's an amazing moment to be here in person. Let me also say that your husband has the best boots I've seen at South by Southwest so far. Props to him for that. Okay, my first question, I'll go back to the elephant in the room. Priya, what does it mean to gather in 2022? Particularly, what does it mean to gather in March 2022 when there is this brutal invasion on the other side? of the world. How do we resolve that with having fun at South by Southwest, learning things at South by Southwest? Can those two things live side by side? What are your thoughts there? We don't get We gather just to escape. We gather to engage. And we don't just gather to celebrate. We gather to mourn, to grieve, to make meaning of what happens in the world at this moment. We gather in part to understand what should I think of this, what is my role in this, what is normal, what is abnormal, what language do I use to describe what's happening in another part of the world, how do I make sense of what my country is deciding to do in my name or not. Is this, you know, how do I make sense of what's happening in my community, in this state, in this country, and in the world, and what is my role in it? Those things are up for grabs. Those are questions that are dynamic questions that we make meaning and we sort out through and with each other. And so at a moment where Ukraine is under invasion, at a moment where there's anti-trans directives in the state that we're sitting in, at a moment in which abortion is under attack, it is not a time to stay apart. It is actually a time to come back. together and to make meaning and to think about what role do I have and how do I begin to make sense of where do I want to play and yes where do I want to dance and where do I want to be so happy to be come together and that we are not monoliths as individuals we are actually a complicated complex community and we can think of each other as monoliths or as one one thing or one way of being but actually when we come together we begin to realize that there's many ways to be and that how we actually structure our gatherings and come together and the conversations we have affect how we actually behave and act after we leave a place. So at moments of crisis, it's actually the most important moments to come together so that we can begin to actually think about where do I play a role in this world, in this community and also how can I actually begin to be with other people and maybe hug them. Maybe not. Maybe just a fist bump. Maybe just an elbow. But actually after two years of not being able to be together and watching things through a screen, I embrace and delight in being together in person, in part to engage in the world, not just escape it. I like that. And just to reflect on that for one more question, Priya, how weird is it that when we finally come out of this pandemic, when we can finally get back to an in-person event, this whole horrible attack invasion happens in Ukraine and it feels like Groundhog Day all over again in some ways. I mean, I think not just, well, also the invasion. And I would also say simultaneously COVID, right? The waves and waves and waves of COVID. Both elements, I think, are moments where we have had to, for the last few years, practice a level of resilience that is sort of systemically unfair. And I would just say what I said again, which is it's a moment to engage and to pause. And engage doesn't mean what am I specifically going to do about Ukraine. Engage means when there are people under threat, how do I begin to understand and make sense of what is happening, and how do I begin to think about my own agency in that, and how do I think about my community and where there's injustice happening in the spaces around me. So again, I think we come together to make meaning and to make sense of what's actually happening in all parts of the world as well as in our homes. Absolutely. Thank you. So how did the pandemic, in your view, from all your research, from all your work, how did it change the way we gather? Or what have we learned new about gathering? since March 2022 when this weird, strange journey began? I think for me, I think perhaps for many of us, the moment that... that I began to realize how big this thing was actually going to be was actually when South by Southwest was canceled. Was that true for any of you all? Do you remember that week? Yeah. In March, I think it was the same week where South by Southwest was canceled. The NBA season was canceled. I think Tom Hanks got COVID and you're like, you're taking the best of us. And I remember watching the kind of standoff between the city of Austin. I was just reading this in the papers, right? I've never even been to South. South by Southwest, but it's such a cultural, iconic gathering that affects so many people and so many artists and so many creators and the city of Austin that I remember watching it, and as a conflict facilitator, I was watching it, and I was scared, but I was also kind of nerding out because there was this very interesting authority question, which is who cancels South by Southwest? Is it the city of Austin, or is it the organizers of South by Southwest? And in watching that standoff again, again, just through the papers. And you can tell me about that. There's no one here. You can just tell us. Don't put it on social media. Exactly. Just a few of us, just a few of us here. But I remember watching that moment. And as a facilitator, I could see the kind of the infrastructure of gatherings, which is true of every gathering, which is who's in charge here, right? At the end of the day, who has the authority to cancel something? At the end of the day, who's responsible for how we meet? And if my memory serves me, it was the city of Austin who finally canceled. canceled it and took kind of the responsibility. And I remember watching it from my kitchen. I got a text, I think I saw a tweet or a text message that like South by is they canceled it. And I remember thinking in that moment, holy moly, this thing is going to be real. And I also realized as somebody who wrote a book called The Art of Gathering. And at that time before COVID hit, I could literally have a Google alert for the word gathering. And like, it kind of made sense. Like there was a signal from the noise. It was like 20% of it was like. It's like, oh, OK, that's kind of related. Basically, over three days, the word gathering moved from the nerdery of facilitators and sociologists, and it started to basically take over the headlines. And it went into the domain of public health officials and governors. And instead of facilitators arguing about, is six people or 10 people the right size in the room, it became basically the governors and departments of health debating whether or not you can have six people or 10 people or 12 people. And the context of gathering changed, right? It changed overnight. And I think the biggest thing that has happened in terms of how we gather, in part is we haven't, at least not in person, is that when gathering was taken from us, we began to see it. We began to see it as something that has value. We began to see it as something that affects our daily lives. And we had to grapple basically overnight to say, how do we do this now, right? How do I have, do we still have a gala for our non-profit organizations? profit on Zoom when it's 90% of our revenue? But you can't, you know, how do we actually do this, right? How do I get married? Do we get married on Zoom, right? That seems kind of awkward. Do we pause our life, right? How do I defend my dissertation? How do I get divorced, right? What does it mean to get divorced? And over the last two years, we've actually had to figure out the software of connection when we didn't have the hardware of gathering. Yeah. Certainly from a South by Southwest perspective, that week when we were canceled by the city, it was March 6th. I'll always remember that because of the importance and because it was a week before Friday the 13th, and that seemed kind of symbolic, right? It was, I mean, I've worked at South by Southwest for 30 years. That was the... Worst experience we've ever had. For what we do with South by Southwest, it's 11 months of planning, it's a long, long slog, but when people, cool people, amazing people such as yourself come to the event. We're re-energized. This is why we do it. And we just didn't have that release. And it was just heartbreaking. And then two days later, we laid off a third of the staff, our friends. It was horrible. We did an online event last year, learned a lot from that, had some great speakers involved in that, and a lot of what we learned has been incorporated into the online offerings we have in the hybrid event for 2022. But certainly, you know, the bread and butter of South by Southwest, since 1987, whether the context is technology or films or music or food or style, what it's really about. is bringing people together face to face, realizing that the technology is slightly less important or largely less important than having those kind of interactions in a real-world setting, being able to have coffee with someone, have a drink with someone, have dinner, have lunch, share new ideas, make new connections, see that power. And, you know, again, all the rest is subtext, but it's the power of getting together and, again, having that conversation. and why we're so excited to be back here in person in 2022. But again, you're the expert on this stuff, not me. Just say, I'll long for the ride. I'll say one thing about that, which is, I think so many of us, how many of you had a heartbreaking cancellation two years ago? Yes. And how many have had a heartbreaking cancellation in the last six months? Less, which is good. Some of you are like, we haven't, we've stopped planning. We're just, we checked out. I think part even being here and being in person and arriving, you know, arriving a couple of days ago, one of the elements... that I think, and I'm a huge proponent of meaningful virtual connection. I think you can absolutely create meaningful. I've been to spectacular Zoom weddings. I kid you not, where because of the way they designed for connection, we felt like we were actually not in the... the room, but connected to people all over the world. And as the bride and bride or groom and groom and bride and groom would do something specific on their stoop in Brooklyn and involve us through Zoom in very specific ways or bury a tradition from a family tradition from a friend of mine, Julie, they buried whiskey, a pint. How does whiskey come? A bottle? A fifth. Where are my whiskey drinkers here? I see that we drink a lot of whiskey. whiskey here between you and I. They buried a bottle of whiskey in their yard, which is a family tradition. And then they invited all of the guests on Zoom to come to their Zoom wedding by bringing a glass of whiskey, sitting on your desk. There's many, many, many ways we can still create meaningful connection virtually. And I think in being here and in remembering what it's like to actually be in a room, we have for two years, we haven't had hallways. We haven't had doorways. to linger in, right? We haven't had corridors, we haven't had bathrooms to wash your hands in and chat with the person next to you, we haven't had coffee lines to informally talk about, you know, your root canal or your cap tooth that wouldn't rise to the level of a Zoom call with 40 people, and yet is actually the infrastructure of connection, it's the infrastructure of the informalist, the infrastructure of the spontaneity. And so for part of part of what in this moment that I actually invite you all to do, and maybe we can turn to the audience in a moment and kind of see who's here, is beginning to remember that when we actually are in a room, in meat space, is that what they call it these days, IRL, we can use, we have agency to move our bodies in ways that aren't constrained by the algorithms or the engineers of Zoom, right? Or Microsoft Teams or Skype. And so with that, I would actually love to see who all is here. Are you all ready for a few? questions about who's in the audience? You're here with me? Can we turn the lights up a little bit? If somebody is is personning the lights, I want to see you all. So is this okay if I kind of sit here? It is. First of all, welcome. I'm so happy to see you all. I want to invite you, if it's accessible to you, to stand up. If it's not, just to sit in your seat as you are and to just take a couple of deep breaths. Don't exhale any germs. Just take a couple of deep breaths. I'm going to invite you to actually just look around. Just turn your bodies around, see who's actually here. And if you dare make eye contact, you can grab each other. And I'm going to invite you to, I'm going to do a quick exercise to just kind of take advantage of being in the room together. So I'm going to invite you to close your eyes or look at the ground and take a couple of deep breaths. And as you do, to feel your feet on the ground. Studies show that 80 to 90% of the information the brain receives about movement in space comes from the nerve endings on the soles of the feet. So I'm just going to invite you to just literally ground your feet into the carpet. And to think back to the moment where you realized that South by Southwest 22 was going to be in person, when you got that invitation or you thought, okay, I want to launch something here, or you were invited to come, and why you said yes. Think about why did you say yes to the invitation to come this year? At the deepest level, why are you here this week? Why are you here today? And take a couple more deep breaths. And now to think back to the last two years and to think about a moment. In which you attended a virtual gathering of some kind, and it was particularly meaningful or transformative. You were surprised how well it worked. You were moved, or you were touched, or you were inspired. It's just a meaningful virtual moment, meaningful virtual gathering. And in a moment, I'm going to invite you to open your eyes. And turn to someone. Find a partner. You can fist bump or not touch or have an awkward, awkward moment. Find another person and introduce yourselves and 30 seconds each, why did you say yes to, why are you here? Why did you say yes to South by Southwest 2022 in person? And if you're on virtual, just put it in the chat. Why are you in the chat? Why are you here? So 30 seconds each, introduce yourself to someone. Okay. Okay, I'm going to pause you. There's a teacher move. If you can hear me, raise your hand. Yes, thank you. If you can hear me, raise your hand and stop talking. Okay, amazing. So how many of you moved more than two feet to find your partner? Some brave souls in the back. Okay, look around. Okay, so keep your hands high. So these are our daredevils in the room. These are our risk takers. And how many of you... How many of you literally went to the person closest to you? Raise your hand. Beautiful. So part of the ways, these are our roots. These are our, we're like, I'm good. I'm here. Who's gonna come around me? So when we gather, right, the first 5% of when we gather, when we come into a room, when we come into a Zoom, those are the moments where we're trying to understand like, what is this thing? How can we be here? What are the rules? What are the norms? Like, can I show my tattoos? Do I need to hide my tattoos? At South by Southwest, I need to get a tattoo. Clearly some boots. And so for so many of us, this is the first time we're coming back together, at least for a gathering of this size. And it can be easy and it's totally fine to be a little rusty, right? To be a little awkward. To be a little bit like, I'm good. Let me just take a little bit of time. It's been a while since I've been with so many other people. And to know that in the first 5% of how we begin to look at one another, to ask questions of one another, to move our bodies in a room and not be necessarily stuck by the infrastructure of the chairs, actually will form the pathways of the rest of the week. So I'm going to invite you now. I asked you a second question when your eyes were closed. Some of your eyes were not closed. I see you. I'm taking notes. I asked you a second question. Do you remember what it was? What? Thank you. So I'm going to invite you now to take a little bit more of a risk, if it's available to you, to move your body a little bit more into the room, to not be stuck by the infrastructure of chairs. Find a second partner, introduce yourself, 30 seconds, and each side listen to a meaningful virtual gathering. And what was, why do you think it really worked? Okay. Go for it. Okay, so pause, thank your partner and come back to your chair. Thank your partner and come back to your chairs. I hope you're starting to feel warmed up, more connected. And I'm going to just ask a few questions now to kind of see who's in the room. And if you're on the Zoom or you're in the virtual room, I invite you to tap this into the chat. Are you all, can I use your, can I work your legs a little bit more? Can I have you stand and sit for a few prompts? Or both hands. You can sit. You can sit now. But I'm going to ask you like five or six questions. And part of how we gather, right, how we begin, this is the opening session, right? And how do we begin to think about who's here? What's the context? Like a great gatherer knows why, first and foremost, knows why we are coming together, knows what the need is, and isn't stuck to a specific form. But also in the first moments of a gathering, the host or the gatherer connects their guests to each other. They protect their guests from each other. I don't really want to be cornered right now. Can we have some rules here? They also temporarily equalize them. Part of an opening moment if you're gathering in a team meeting, it could be doctors in a surgical room, in any context. to connect people and give context for each other. So I'm going to do that quickly. And you can watch how quickly in a room you can say, who is here with me now? So first of all, if this is your first in-person South by Southwest, I invite you to stand. Woo-hoo! And look around. See, you're not alone. Look around. And if you are here, if you, what am I trying to say? If you came here from outside of the country to be here, stay standing. Wow, and can we hear some of the countries? Welcome. Okay, scream through your masks. I'll start here. Let's just listen to some of the countries in the room. Let's say, just quick, your city, the city of port, like the city you took an airplane from. Whoo, you win. Taiwan. Brazil in the house! Others? Amsterdam. Oh my gosh. Beautiful. Welcome. Okay, you can sit back down. If you have been here, if you've come to South by five or more times, please stand. Wow. Okay, ten or more times, stay standing. Fifteen or more times, stay standing. Oh my goodness. These are the OG. Welcome and can I just, I'm putting you on the spot here, why do you come back? Why do you come back each year? Why do you work it? Why is it, why do you love it? Why do you keep coming back to work it? The people. Beautiful. Welcome. Come sit back down. If this is your first big in-person gathering in two years, please stand. Beautiful. And you can sit back down if you forgot how to pack. Please stand. Me, definitely me. You can sit back down if your company or organization was incredibly negatively impacted by the pandemic. Please stand. And I'd love to just hear one word in a way that the rest of the room can hear. We usually have mics, but because of COVID, we don't have mics, so I'm sorry. The audio is not going to be great, but I just want a little context. Just the type of business, and just hear, what are the industries that have really been affected in the last two years? Opera. Opera. Event production. Public health. Airline. Philanthropy. Energy. Broadway. Endurance events, education. Hospitality. Sporting competitions. Say it again. Outdoor advertising. Thank you. Tourism, restaurants, health care. Beautiful. You can sit back down. If your business or organization was fundamentally grew because of the pandemic, please stand. And let's hear some of the words. Grocery, real estate, janitorial services. Online education. Mental health. Gaming. Business coaching. Software. Investing. Say it again. Learning coach for consulting. Marketing. Computer retail. Food delivery. Beautiful. Amazon. I'm done folks. A few more questions. If you made a major life change in the last two years, please stand. If you would like to admit it. Please stand. And again, I'd just love to hear what kind of change. Divorce. Divorce. Congratulations for brave exits. Others? Lost my job. I had a baby. You had a baby. Congratulations. How many babies did we have in the room? Beautiful. How many job changes or job losses or quitting, resignations? I know those are two very different things. How many divorces? It was the relationship expert Esther Perel called it the great relationship accelerator. Right? Whichever it was the revealer. Okay, you can sit back down. Just two more questions and we'll keep going. If you consider yourself a troublemaker, if you... The real troublemakers are like, I'm not standing for this stupid prompt. If you consider... So just look around and you can sit back down. If you... consider yourself a smoother over, kind of a peacemaker, you're often the one kind of bringing people together and making it all work out, look around, some more peacemakers in the room than troublemakers, Hugh you are in luck, okay you sit back down, if you consider yourself both a troublemaker and a smoother over, you can sit up, wow oh my gosh, south by southwest, okay so this is the majority of the room, so stand, keep standing, so my, I'm a conflict resolution facilitator, that's still my day job, I wrote this book called The Art of Gathering and my day job is still conflict resolution. And the last two years has been a moment of reckoning, societally and in every institution I know. And the people in the room, this trait of being both troublemaker and smoother over, having both of those elements, these are the people in organizations that tend to be part of transformational conversations. Why? Because you're willing to poke and prod, and you're not afraid of a little heat. But you're also not just interested in burning the house down. And human connection is as threatened by unhealthy peace as it is by unhealthy conflict. And in this moment, whether it's how to go back to work or not, whether it's what to do with systemic racism, whether it's how to think about masking, whether it's about CRT in our classrooms, to cultivate this element of being able to cultivate and be part of healthy heat, healthy conflict is one of the most important elements to transformative gatherings. So welcome, keep it up, and we're going to get back to the conversation, but I hope you continue to have conversations with one another because this is an awesome room, y'all, and you're also very good looking. Priya, I love how you got y'all in there to acclimate to Texas. So you referenced that in your last question. There has certainly been a lot of discourse and controversy about... returning to the office as we as Omicron continues to recede knock on wood what are your feelings there do we need it is it for work is it for socializing how would you have us think about gathering in that office space as we continue to think about do we go back, do we stay at home? Yeah, it's such a acute question of the moment. I'm actually curious, how many of you are fully back in an office? Interesting. And how many of you have gone fully remote, either as an individual or as an organization? Wow. And how many of you are part of organizations that are really grappling with this question right now and are confused? So I think one of the things that we began to learn as the pandemic hit, I don't know if you all remember this New Yorker cartoon. It was, I think it was the first week of March and it was like, well, I guess all of those meetings really could have been emails, right? It was like all... And again, part of what this moment has happened in terms of gathering is, I said this at the beginning, we began to see it. And we began to see like an x-ray. When should we actually meet? What can actually be in an email? When do we actually have to be synchronistically at the same time in the same place having a generative conversation? When can I actually do this alone? And so I think similarly this conversation around work, asking when do we return to the office or how do we return to the office is actually to me the wrong question. And as a facilitator, so much of conversation is asking and knowing how to frame the right questions. And so when I'm working with teams and organizations, I have teams answer collectively in the same room, or Zoom, these four questions. The first, in the past two years, when have been moments where you've longed to just be in the same room with each other? What are moments when you're just like, I wish I could just push through the screen, or I wish I could just show you this thing, or it's really hard to fight with you right now because you're hitting the red button, you're leaving the room. If we were in the same room, I wish you could just come together and duke it out. So first, what have you done? you really longed for? When have you missed your colleagues? What are the moments you actually...and just listen without judgment. Have them write it down. Number two, what have you not missed? What are you really glad we didn't do and no one's talking about and you pray it's not coming back? What did you not miss? miss? Number three, what did we invent during this time that we actually really worked and we want to bring with us? And number four, what might we experiment with now? And when you ask those questions, a couple of things happen. First, people realize their lists aren't the same. What one person missed, right, is a commute, even a commute. Most people don't miss a commute. Some people really miss the commute. It's the time when they listen to the podcast. It's the time when they get out of the house. It's the hour on the train when they read a book. It's the, again, Again, without judgment, it's just data. When are moments where, and as you start to, as a team, begin to think about, oh, we've developed discretion around when we actually want to come together, and let's design and run experiments around that, I think that's a much better way to do it. And the last thing I'll just say is, I said this earlier, coming together, we are, I think it's Dan Gilbert who has these studies on happiness, which is like we are terribly bad at predicting our future happiness, and I think there's some element in watching and talking to. teams talking to organizations that there's an over indexing on wanting to not be in the office in part because we've forgotten when it works well, we've forgotten the power of corridors, we've forgotten being in the hallway, we've forgotten actually in terms of hierarchy, it's often people lower on the hierarchy benefit more from informal interactions, right? The people who are high up in the organization, they can call whatever meaning they want, they can text, they kind of have the context of the organization. It's actually young people who... like how do you if you're not scheduled on a zoom right how do you ride an elevator with the big boss and actually get your 30 seconds in um how do you stand in line for that you know mediocre salad and realize you're you happen to be standing in line with someone from another department and so i think part of this also is is i i'm a big proponent proponent also of in-person gathering when you but to start by asking what is the need here and for some of the need it's just connection you can do your work virtually but to actually feel like you are a part of a place place to actually build the trust so that when the going gets tough or lines of communication get really complicated, you give people the benefit of the doubt. You pick up the phone, you text them rather than being like, this is a black box, I don't really know anyone here, like, what's happening? And so I think it's a complex conversation that needs to start with when do we need to work, when do we need to meet, what is the nature of our work, right? A comedy writer's room, I was speaking with a writer in a comedy room a few months ago, and they said to me, as an introvert, and as somebody who doesn't enjoy the jockeying of the writer's room, I actually have found it incredibly helpful to have time away to write rather than time together. Whereas the head of a newsroom told me recently, it is incredibly hard. He began to realize how many micro decisions are made in a moment across a group of people on how to cover breaking news. The nature of the work matters. And so how to actually begin, and the last thing I'll just say is, Ray Ringel has a really good chart. chart on this in an HBR piece. She's a facilitator, and she has a graph, and it's basically when should we meet in person, and her hypothesis is the level of complexity, emotional complexity and intellectual complexity. The more it increases, the more we benefit from being in person. And can you give context to that very thoughtful answer? Were you having any of these conversations about working remotely pre-March? February, March 2020. Was anyone thinking about this? I was not. And I remember, again, while watching South by Southwest, all the tweets, it was a media storm about the cancellation. It was a very interesting moment. And I remember one of the tweets that has most stuck with me comes from the researchers Sasha Constanza-Schock. They're a MIT researcher. They wrote this beautiful book called Design Justice. And Sasha tweeted, during this fraught five-day period, Are they canceling or not? Disabled community, could you just hook up a live stream? Abled people, it's hard. Disabled community, could you just, not complicated, like can you just hook up a live stream? Disabled people, it's really complicated and really expensive. Coronavirus 2019. Hi! Abled people, we're pleased to announce a state-of-the-art virtual live streaming system. Right? And I say that in part because there have been communities who have been thinking about remote for a very long time. The disabled community is one with incredible nuance and sophistication. There have been companies that have been remote for 30 years, right? There are certain companies that were built virtually and remotely. And so there are, like in most crises, there are communities of experts. you know, rather than like the Columbus thing of saying like, oh, now, you know, I know how to do this. But I will say, for me, when I wrote the book, The Art of Gathering in 2018, and for two years, I facilitated experiences and went around the country talking to people. And the most common question I got was, does this apply virtually? And I would say, absolutely. These are principles, right? The principles of know why you're gathering. Why are we actually, what's the need here? What's the purpose? Openings matter, right? The way you set up the context, infrastructure matters. How do you think about connecting your people and protecting them matters? That is absolutely like Twitter was not created to be a protective space, right? That wasn't the original purpose of that technology, and they've had to figure out, you know, reverse engineering. How do we actually... Two years ago, they wrote this report called We Want to Be the Global Dinner Party. It's like, there's a lot of yelling at that global dinner party, right? And so I say that because... What we have begun to all of us kind of become ambidextrous around is that whether you're virtually gathering or in-person gathering to begin to understand how do you have a relevant need and how do you help people meaningfully connect despite significant obstacles. Whether those significant obstacles are race and identity and ethnicity or interfaith dialogue which is my background or whether the significant obstacle is you can't be in the same room at the same time. How do we do this now? And the fact that we're asking those questions is progress. Great. Asking questions. We are going to open it up to the audience. I believe there's a Slido channel for this. You can ask questions there if you haven't already. And if that doesn't work, I think we can... Do we know how to do that? Is that on their phone? Do you all know how to ask questions? on slido or we could just go back to old school and they could raise their hand i'm i'm fine with that this might be working while they're doing that one more question for you um again in the context of south by southwest you say say gathering meaningfully can take courage and require sticking your neck out a bit. You did this with the people. You got them to talk and that was fabulous. What other advice can you give people in terms of having the courage over the next few days to make the most out of this particular gathering? I love that question. Gathering does take courage. Guesting takes courage. work it's called the art of gathering it's not called the art of hosting in part because I think guests have extraordinary power to shape things and I'll answer the question with a story which is a couple of years ago and I have permission to share all the stories I share a couple of years ago my father was a civil servant and he for 30 years he worked for a government agency and he retired kind of I think it was a July it was this pre-pandemic and it's kind of like a It was a quiet time. A lot of people were on vacation. My dad's from the Midwest. He's kind of unassuming and doesn't want to make a fuss. And he was just kind of like, going to Irish exit 30 years of government service. Just like, no fuss, no party, nothing. And one of his colleagues basically realized, oh, Ron's leaving. We need to do something. Let's have a lunch. Let's have a retirement lunch. He kind of got it together. And again, it was kind of informal. It was last minute. And my stepmother heard about this. And she was like, oh. Can I come? And he said, I guess so. So she tells me the story. She goes. She arrives. There's a long table, lots of people, kind of buzzy, fun, excited to go and celebrate this guy. And she sits down. And five minutes go by, warm chat, 10 minutes go by, 15 minutes go by, 20 minutes go by. And all of a sudden, she starts getting really nervous. And she's like, is his retirement lunch just going to be lunch? After 30 years of service, are we just going to to chat and talk and like not, I was going to say consummate the marriage, maybe that's a bad metaphor, but like, you know, like something needs to happen, right? She began to observe like this, the purpose of this thing is to honor this guy. And right now this feels like every other lunch. And so she took a big risk and she dung her glass and she stood up and she said she was like shaking and, you know, awkward. And she was like, hi, I'm Renee. I'm Ron's wife. And, you know. And she, and she's, as she told me later, she was like, she was like, how, what do I actually say to like get this group to connect? She said, I know, I know home Ron, but I don't really know work Ron. Will you tell me about this guy? And it was like silence. And then the small voice from the side of the table said, you know what, I'd like to say something. When I was an intern here and I had all these questions, Ron's desk was like really far from mine, but I would walk across the office to go talk to him because he never made me feel dumb. He'd put down whatever you do and he'd look up. And then someone else was like, you know what, Ron is always the person who if you ask him anything, and then basically these stories started coming up. Someone else like at the pinnacle was like, You know, Ron is the guy who, he's a computer programmer, and at the end, once we find the algorithm, we need an acronym for the program, right? And most people think it's a really boring process, like just slap an acronym on. Ron always makes it fun, and his personal coup was when he named one of our programs The PREA, after his daughter. It's like the Pesticide Reduction Information Act. And all of a sudden, over like 40 minutes, The entire context changed, right? They began to gather. They were gathered, right? They went from an individual group of people, and one, it was more interesting and more meaningful, but another, like at a deeper level, in those 40 minutes, in those 90 minutes, first, she connected them. She gave them a very subtle infrastructure and to know how to actually coordinate. How do we do this, right? How do 12 people or 20 people do this? But the second is, for somebody who had served for 30 years, she changed the meaning. of his service to him, right? 40 minutes, 90 minutes, you take those stories for the rest of your life. What was my impact here? Oh, they noticed those small acts of kindness. Oh, they noticed what I was like. And then for the people who remained, oh, people notice here treatment, right? Oh, I love that story. Oh, maybe I want to be more like that. And so I say gathering takes courage in part because first it just starts with observation. What's the need here? Most people want to connect, we just don't know how, and we need a safe way to do it so it's equalizing. But then the second thing is, sometimes it doesn't work, you know? And so gathering is a practice, it's a learnable practice, and it takes courage. And the last thing I'll say is, like, I do this, I try to do this, my friends know, like, sometimes it doesn't work, you try to find the right thing and it's awkward. But almost all, even now, for my own gatherings, I'm still nervous and shaky before it. I get, I don't, you know, I don't know how it's going to go well, but I know... that it's better to come together and try to create meaning together and shape and connect and get off the script than to just go through the rote behaviors. And I wrote The Art of Gathering in 2018 because a lot of us were on autopilot. And I think we have an extraordinary moment to pause, to observe, to reimagine because how we gather right now is literally up for grabs. That's pretty good. Okay. Should we do some questions? We have one more question. You've got a new project coming up. Tell us about that, please. Oh, this is very South by. Okay, so thank you. So I, over the pandemic in part because we couldn't meet in person, I have been working on developing the first digital course for gathering. It's called the Art of Gathering Digital Course, and we're going to launch in late spring. And it's basically a... Okay. an interactive virtual experience to learn the practical skills of how we gather. And if you, okay, this is like high tech for me. If you take out your phones, you're allowed to take out your phones, and you text the word gather, G-A-T-H-E-R, gather, to 66866, then you can be the first to know about the course and also sign up for my monthly newsletter where every month I take on a story. Actually, the... The Renee story was the last month's newsletter example. And we've also created some resources for you all on, I think it's priaparker.com slash SXSW, South by Southwest. You get your own handle. Nice. Where we've put a free guide to how, if you want to plan a meaningful occasion, how do you actually, as a workbook, how do you actually begin to think about whether it's a baby shower or a team meeting or a retirement party, how do you actually do this in a way that begins to shift the way we would normally gather? That is gather to 66866. Yes. Is there a significance to that number? Does anyone know that number? It's joined by text. I think it's a really cool tech. But no, I think that's the number they use. You get to choose your word. So we were like, I know a word. Gather. And it wasn't taken.

In fact, you've been here for a few days, right? I've been here for a few days. My husband Anand and I arrived two days ago and we have had Miga's tacos and we have gone to the Broken Spoke and we spoke... I spoke at South by Southwest EDU yesterday, which was wonderful. And I'm so happy to see you all.

I will just start with one anecdote, which is last year, when I was the closing speaker, Anand and I had a very different experience of a green room, which is what looked like a sealed Team 6 black box got shipped to our home. And our neighbors were like, what is happening in that apartment? And it took me about three hours to unwind everything. And I looked into a camera and spoke with many of you.

But it is such a pleasure to see your bodies and your faces in this room. So thank you for being here. It's an amazing moment to be here in person.

Let me also say that your husband has the best boots I've seen at South by Southwest so far. Props to him for that. Okay, my first question, I'll go back to the elephant in the room.

Priya, what does it mean to gather in 2022? Particularly, what does it mean to gather in March 2022 when there is this brutal invasion on the other side? of the world. How do we resolve that with having fun at South by Southwest, learning things at South by Southwest? Can those two things live side by side?

What are your thoughts there? We don't get We gather just to escape. We gather to engage. And we don't just gather to celebrate.

We gather to mourn, to grieve, to make meaning of what happens in the world at this moment. We gather in part to understand what should I think of this, what is my role in this, what is normal, what is abnormal, what language do I use to describe what's happening in another part of the world, how do I make sense of what my country is deciding to do in my name or not. Is this, you know, how do I make sense of what's happening in my community, in this state, in this country, and in the world, and what is my role in it? Those things are up for grabs. Those are questions that are dynamic questions that we make meaning and we sort out through and with each other.

And so at a moment where Ukraine is under invasion, at a moment where there's anti-trans directives in the state that we're sitting in, at a moment in which abortion is under attack, it is not a time to stay apart. It is actually a time to come back. together and to make meaning and to think about what role do I have and how do I begin to make sense of where do I want to play and yes where do I want to dance and where do I want to be so happy to be come together and that we are not monoliths as individuals we are actually a complicated complex community and we can think of each other as monoliths or as one one thing or one way of being but actually when we come together we begin to realize that there's many ways to be and that how we actually structure our gatherings and come together and the conversations we have affect how we actually behave and act after we leave a place. So at moments of crisis, it's actually the most important moments to come together so that we can begin to actually think about where do I play a role in this world, in this community and also how can I actually begin to be with other people and maybe hug them.

Maybe not. Maybe just a fist bump. Maybe just an elbow. But actually after two years of not being able to be together and watching things through a screen, I embrace and delight in being together in person, in part to engage in the world, not just escape it. I like that.

And just to reflect on that for one more question, Priya, how weird is it that when we finally come out of this pandemic, when we can finally get back to an in-person event, this whole horrible attack invasion happens in Ukraine and it feels like Groundhog Day all over again in some ways. I mean, I think not just, well, also the invasion. And I would also say simultaneously COVID, right? The waves and waves and waves of COVID. Both elements, I think, are moments where we have had to, for the last few years, practice a level of resilience that is sort of systemically unfair.

And I would just say what I said again, which is it's a moment to engage and to pause. And engage doesn't mean what am I specifically going to do about Ukraine. Engage means when there are people under threat, how do I begin to understand and make sense of what is happening, and how do I begin to think about my own agency in that, and how do I think about my community and where there's injustice happening in the spaces around me.

So again, I think we come together to make meaning and to make sense of what's actually happening in all parts of the world as well as in our homes. Absolutely. Thank you. So how did the pandemic, in your view, from all your research, from all your work, how did it change the way we gather? Or what have we learned new about gathering?

since March 2022 when this weird, strange journey began? I think for me, I think perhaps for many of us, the moment that... that I began to realize how big this thing was actually going to be was actually when South by Southwest was canceled. Was that true for any of you all? Do you remember that week?

Yeah. In March, I think it was the same week where South by Southwest was canceled. The NBA season was canceled.

I think Tom Hanks got COVID and you're like, you're taking the best of us. And I remember watching the kind of standoff between the city of Austin. I was just reading this in the papers, right?

I've never even been to South. South by Southwest, but it's such a cultural, iconic gathering that affects so many people and so many artists and so many creators and the city of Austin that I remember watching it, and as a conflict facilitator, I was watching it, and I was scared, but I was also kind of nerding out because there was this very interesting authority question, which is who cancels South by Southwest? Is it the city of Austin, or is it the organizers of South by Southwest?

And in watching that standoff again, again, just through the papers. And you can tell me about that. There's no one here. You can just tell us.

Don't put it on social media. Exactly. Just a few of us, just a few of us here. But I remember watching that moment.

And as a facilitator, I could see the kind of the infrastructure of gatherings, which is true of every gathering, which is who's in charge here, right? At the end of the day, who has the authority to cancel something? At the end of the day, who's responsible for how we meet?

And if my memory serves me, it was the city of Austin who finally canceled. canceled it and took kind of the responsibility. And I remember watching it from my kitchen.

I got a text, I think I saw a tweet or a text message that like South by is they canceled it. And I remember thinking in that moment, holy moly, this thing is going to be real. And I also realized as somebody who wrote a book called The Art of Gathering. And at that time before COVID hit, I could literally have a Google alert for the word gathering. And like, it kind of made sense.

Like there was a signal from the noise. It was like 20% of it was like. It's like, oh, OK, that's kind of related.

Basically, over three days, the word gathering moved from the nerdery of facilitators and sociologists, and it started to basically take over the headlines. And it went into the domain of public health officials and governors. And instead of facilitators arguing about, is six people or 10 people the right size in the room, it became basically the governors and departments of health debating whether or not you can have six people or 10 people or 12 people.

And the context of gathering changed, right? It changed overnight. And I think the biggest thing that has happened in terms of how we gather, in part is we haven't, at least not in person, is that when gathering was taken from us, we began to see it.

We began to see it as something that has value. We began to see it as something that affects our daily lives. And we had to grapple basically overnight to say, how do we do this now, right?

How do I have, do we still have a gala for our non-profit organizations? profit on Zoom when it's 90% of our revenue? But you can't, you know, how do we actually do this, right?

How do I get married? Do we get married on Zoom, right? That seems kind of awkward.

Do we pause our life, right? How do I defend my dissertation? How do I get divorced, right? What does it mean to get divorced?

And over the last two years, we've actually had to figure out the software of connection when we didn't have the hardware of gathering. Yeah. Certainly from a South by Southwest perspective, that week when we were canceled by the city, it was March 6th.

I'll always remember that because of the importance and because it was a week before Friday the 13th, and that seemed kind of symbolic, right? It was, I mean, I've worked at South by Southwest for 30 years. That was the...

Worst experience we've ever had. For what we do with South by Southwest, it's 11 months of planning, it's a long, long slog, but when people, cool people, amazing people such as yourself come to the event. We're re-energized. This is why we do it. And we just didn't have that release.

And it was just heartbreaking. And then two days later, we laid off a third of the staff, our friends. It was horrible. We did an online event last year, learned a lot from that, had some great speakers involved in that, and a lot of what we learned has been incorporated into the online offerings we have in the hybrid event for 2022. But certainly, you know, the bread and butter of South by Southwest, since 1987, whether the context is technology or films or music or food or style, what it's really about.

is bringing people together face to face, realizing that the technology is slightly less important or largely less important than having those kind of interactions in a real-world setting, being able to have coffee with someone, have a drink with someone, have dinner, have lunch, share new ideas, make new connections, see that power. And, you know, again, all the rest is subtext, but it's the power of getting together and, again, having that conversation. and why we're so excited to be back here in person in 2022. But again, you're the expert on this stuff, not me.

Just say, I'll long for the ride. I'll say one thing about that, which is, I think so many of us, how many of you had a heartbreaking cancellation two years ago? Yes.

And how many have had a heartbreaking cancellation in the last six months? Less, which is good. Some of you are like, we haven't, we've stopped planning.

We're just, we checked out. I think part even being here and being in person and arriving, you know, arriving a couple of days ago, one of the elements... that I think, and I'm a huge proponent of meaningful virtual connection.

I think you can absolutely create meaningful. I've been to spectacular Zoom weddings. I kid you not, where because of the way they designed for connection, we felt like we were actually not in the... the room, but connected to people all over the world. And as the bride and bride or groom and groom and bride and groom would do something specific on their stoop in Brooklyn and involve us through Zoom in very specific ways or bury a tradition from a family tradition from a friend of mine, Julie, they buried whiskey, a pint.

How does whiskey come? A bottle? A fifth. Where are my whiskey drinkers here? I see that we drink a lot of whiskey.

whiskey here between you and I. They buried a bottle of whiskey in their yard, which is a family tradition. And then they invited all of the guests on Zoom to come to their Zoom wedding by bringing a glass of whiskey, sitting on your desk.

There's many, many, many ways we can still create meaningful connection virtually. And I think in being here and in remembering what it's like to actually be in a room, we have for two years, we haven't had hallways. We haven't had doorways. to linger in, right?

We haven't had corridors, we haven't had bathrooms to wash your hands in and chat with the person next to you, we haven't had coffee lines to informally talk about, you know, your root canal or your cap tooth that wouldn't rise to the level of a Zoom call with 40 people, and yet is actually the infrastructure of connection, it's the infrastructure of the informalist, the infrastructure of the spontaneity. And so for part of part of what in this moment that I actually invite you all to do, and maybe we can turn to the audience in a moment and kind of see who's here, is beginning to remember that when we actually are in a room, in meat space, is that what they call it these days, IRL, we can use, we have agency to move our bodies in ways that aren't constrained by the algorithms or the engineers of Zoom, right? Or Microsoft Teams or Skype.

And so with that, I would actually love to see who all is here. Are you all ready for a few? questions about who's in the audience?

You're here with me? Can we turn the lights up a little bit? If somebody is is personning the lights, I want to see you all.

So is this okay if I kind of sit here? It is. First of all, welcome. I'm so happy to see you all.

I want to invite you, if it's accessible to you, to stand up. If it's not, just to sit in your seat as you are and to just take a couple of deep breaths. Don't exhale any germs. Just take a couple of deep breaths.

I'm going to invite you to actually just look around. Just turn your bodies around, see who's actually here. And if you dare make eye contact, you can grab each other.

And I'm going to invite you to, I'm going to do a quick exercise to just kind of take advantage of being in the room together. So I'm going to invite you to close your eyes or look at the ground and take a couple of deep breaths. And as you do, to feel your feet on the ground.

Studies show that 80 to 90% of the information the brain receives about movement in space comes from the nerve endings on the soles of the feet. So I'm just going to invite you to just literally ground your feet into the carpet. And to think back to the moment where you realized that South by Southwest 22 was going to be in person, when you got that invitation or you thought, okay, I want to launch something here, or you were invited to come, and why you said yes.

Think about why did you say yes to the invitation to come this year? At the deepest level, why are you here this week? Why are you here today?

And take a couple more deep breaths. And now to think back to the last two years and to think about a moment. In which you attended a virtual gathering of some kind, and it was particularly meaningful or transformative. You were surprised how well it worked. You were moved, or you were touched, or you were inspired.

It's just a meaningful virtual moment, meaningful virtual gathering. And in a moment, I'm going to invite you to open your eyes. And turn to someone. Find a partner.

You can fist bump or not touch or have an awkward, awkward moment. Find another person and introduce yourselves and 30 seconds each, why did you say yes to, why are you here? Why did you say yes to South by Southwest 2022 in person? And if you're on virtual, just put it in the chat.

Why are you in the chat? Why are you here? So 30 seconds each, introduce yourself to someone. Okay.

Okay, I'm going to pause you. There's a teacher move. If you can hear me, raise your hand. Yes, thank you. If you can hear me, raise your hand and stop talking.

Okay, amazing. So how many of you moved more than two feet to find your partner? Some brave souls in the back. Okay, look around. Okay, so keep your hands high.

So these are our daredevils in the room. These are our risk takers. And how many of you...

How many of you literally went to the person closest to you? Raise your hand. Beautiful.

So part of the ways, these are our roots. These are our, we're like, I'm good. I'm here. Who's gonna come around me? So when we gather, right, the first 5% of when we gather, when we come into a room, when we come into a Zoom, those are the moments where we're trying to understand like, what is this thing?

How can we be here? What are the rules? What are the norms?

Like, can I show my tattoos? Do I need to hide my tattoos? At South by Southwest, I need to get a tattoo. Clearly some boots.

And so for so many of us, this is the first time we're coming back together, at least for a gathering of this size. And it can be easy and it's totally fine to be a little rusty, right? To be a little awkward. To be a little bit like, I'm good.

Let me just take a little bit of time. It's been a while since I've been with so many other people. And to know that in the first 5% of how we begin to look at one another, to ask questions of one another, to move our bodies in a room and not be necessarily stuck by the infrastructure of the chairs, actually will form the pathways of the rest of the week.

So I'm going to invite you now. I asked you a second question when your eyes were closed. Some of your eyes were not closed.

I see you. I'm taking notes. I asked you a second question. Do you remember what it was? What?

Thank you. So I'm going to invite you now to take a little bit more of a risk, if it's available to you, to move your body a little bit more into the room, to not be stuck by the infrastructure of chairs. Find a second partner, introduce yourself, 30 seconds, and each side listen to a meaningful virtual gathering.

And what was, why do you think it really worked? Okay. Go for it. Okay, so pause, thank your partner and come back to your chair.

Thank your partner and come back to your chairs. I hope you're starting to feel warmed up, more connected. And I'm going to just ask a few questions now to kind of see who's in the room. And if you're on the Zoom or you're in the virtual room, I invite you to tap this into the chat. Are you all, can I use your, can I work your legs a little bit more?

Can I have you stand and sit for a few prompts? Or both hands. You can sit. You can sit now. But I'm going to ask you like five or six questions.

And part of how we gather, right, how we begin, this is the opening session, right? And how do we begin to think about who's here? What's the context? Like a great gatherer knows why, first and foremost, knows why we are coming together, knows what the need is, and isn't stuck to a specific form.

But also in the first moments of a gathering, the host or the gatherer connects their guests to each other. They protect their guests from each other. I don't really want to be cornered right now.

Can we have some rules here? They also temporarily equalize them. Part of an opening moment if you're gathering in a team meeting, it could be doctors in a surgical room, in any context. to connect people and give context for each other. So I'm going to do that quickly.

And you can watch how quickly in a room you can say, who is here with me now? So first of all, if this is your first in-person South by Southwest, I invite you to stand. Woo-hoo! And look around. See, you're not alone.

Look around. And if you are here, if you, what am I trying to say? If you came here from outside of the country to be here, stay standing.

Wow, and can we hear some of the countries? Welcome. Okay, scream through your masks. I'll start here.

Let's just listen to some of the countries in the room. Let's say, just quick, your city, the city of port, like the city you took an airplane from. Whoo, you win. Taiwan.

Brazil in the house! Others? Amsterdam. Oh my gosh. Beautiful.

Welcome. Okay, you can sit back down. If you have been here, if you've come to South by five or more times, please stand.

Wow. Okay, ten or more times, stay standing. Fifteen or more times, stay standing.

Oh my goodness. These are the OG. Welcome and can I just, I'm putting you on the spot here, why do you come back? Why do you come back each year? Why do you work it?

Why is it, why do you love it? Why do you keep coming back to work it? The people. Beautiful.

Welcome. Come sit back down. If this is your first big in-person gathering in two years, please stand.

Beautiful. And you can sit back down if you forgot how to pack. Please stand.

Me, definitely me. You can sit back down if your company or organization was incredibly negatively impacted by the pandemic. Please stand. And I'd love to just hear one word in a way that the rest of the room can hear. We usually have mics, but because of COVID, we don't have mics, so I'm sorry.

The audio is not going to be great, but I just want a little context. Just the type of business, and just hear, what are the industries that have really been affected in the last two years? Opera.

Opera. Event production. Public health. Airline. Philanthropy.

Energy. Broadway. Endurance events, education. Hospitality. Sporting competitions.

Say it again. Outdoor advertising. Thank you.

Tourism, restaurants, health care. Beautiful. You can sit back down. If your business or organization was fundamentally grew because of the pandemic, please stand. And let's hear some of the words.

Grocery, real estate, janitorial services. Online education. Mental health. Gaming. Business coaching.

Software. Investing. Say it again. Learning coach for consulting. Marketing.

Computer retail. Food delivery. Beautiful. Amazon.

I'm done folks. A few more questions. If you made a major life change in the last two years, please stand.

If you would like to admit it. Please stand. And again, I'd just love to hear what kind of change. Divorce. Divorce.

Congratulations for brave exits. Others? Lost my job. I had a baby. You had a baby.

Congratulations. How many babies did we have in the room? Beautiful.

How many job changes or job losses or quitting, resignations? I know those are two very different things. How many divorces? It was the relationship expert Esther Perel called it the great relationship accelerator.

Right? Whichever it was the revealer. Okay, you can sit back down. Just two more questions and we'll keep going.

If you consider yourself a troublemaker, if you... The real troublemakers are like, I'm not standing for this stupid prompt. If you consider... So just look around and you can sit back down. If you...

consider yourself a smoother over, kind of a peacemaker, you're often the one kind of bringing people together and making it all work out, look around, some more peacemakers in the room than troublemakers, Hugh you are in luck, okay you sit back down, if you consider yourself both a troublemaker and a smoother over, you can sit up, wow oh my gosh, south by southwest, okay so this is the majority of the room, so stand, keep standing, so my, I'm a conflict resolution facilitator, that's still my day job, I wrote this book called The Art of Gathering and my day job is still conflict resolution. And the last two years has been a moment of reckoning, societally and in every institution I know. And the people in the room, this trait of being both troublemaker and smoother over, having both of those elements, these are the people in organizations that tend to be part of transformational conversations.

Why? Because you're willing to poke and prod, and you're not afraid of a little heat. But you're also not just interested in burning the house down. And human connection is as threatened by unhealthy peace as it is by unhealthy conflict.

And in this moment, whether it's how to go back to work or not, whether it's what to do with systemic racism, whether it's how to think about masking, whether it's about CRT in our classrooms, to cultivate this element of being able to cultivate and be part of healthy heat, healthy conflict is one of the most important elements to transformative gatherings. So welcome, keep it up, and we're going to get back to the conversation, but I hope you continue to have conversations with one another because this is an awesome room, y'all, and you're also very good looking. Priya, I love how you got y'all in there to acclimate to Texas.

So you referenced that in your last question. There has certainly been a lot of discourse and controversy about... returning to the office as we as Omicron continues to recede knock on wood what are your feelings there do we need it is it for work is it for socializing how would you have us think about gathering in that office space as we continue to think about do we go back, do we stay at home? Yeah, it's such a acute question of the moment. I'm actually curious, how many of you are fully back in an office?

Interesting. And how many of you have gone fully remote, either as an individual or as an organization? Wow. And how many of you are part of organizations that are really grappling with this question right now and are confused?

So I think one of the things that we began to learn as the pandemic hit, I don't know if you all remember this New Yorker cartoon. It was, I think it was the first week of March and it was like, well, I guess all of those meetings really could have been emails, right? It was like all... And again, part of what this moment has happened in terms of gathering is, I said this at the beginning, we began to see it. And we began to see like an x-ray.

When should we actually meet? What can actually be in an email? When do we actually have to be synchronistically at the same time in the same place having a generative conversation? When can I actually do this alone?

And so I think similarly this conversation around work, asking when do we return to the office or how do we return to the office is actually to me the wrong question. And as a facilitator, so much of conversation is asking and knowing how to frame the right questions. And so when I'm working with teams and organizations, I have teams answer collectively in the same room, or Zoom, these four questions.

The first, in the past two years, when have been moments where you've longed to just be in the same room with each other? What are moments when you're just like, I wish I could just push through the screen, or I wish I could just show you this thing, or it's really hard to fight with you right now because you're hitting the red button, you're leaving the room. If we were in the same room, I wish you could just come together and duke it out.

So first, what have you done? you really longed for? When have you missed your colleagues?

What are the moments you actually...and just listen without judgment. Have them write it down. Number two, what have you not missed? What are you really glad we didn't do and no one's talking about and you pray it's not coming back? What did you not miss?

miss? Number three, what did we invent during this time that we actually really worked and we want to bring with us? And number four, what might we experiment with now? And when you ask those questions, a couple of things happen. First, people realize their lists aren't the same.

What one person missed, right, is a commute, even a commute. Most people don't miss a commute. Some people really miss the commute. It's the time when they listen to the podcast. It's the time when they get out of the house.

It's the hour on the train when they read a book. It's the, again, Again, without judgment, it's just data. When are moments where, and as you start to, as a team, begin to think about, oh, we've developed discretion around when we actually want to come together, and let's design and run experiments around that, I think that's a much better way to do it. And the last thing I'll just say is, I said this earlier, coming together, we are, I think it's Dan Gilbert who has these studies on happiness, which is like we are terribly bad at predicting our future happiness, and I think there's some element in watching and talking to.

teams talking to organizations that there's an over indexing on wanting to not be in the office in part because we've forgotten when it works well, we've forgotten the power of corridors, we've forgotten being in the hallway, we've forgotten actually in terms of hierarchy, it's often people lower on the hierarchy benefit more from informal interactions, right? The people who are high up in the organization, they can call whatever meaning they want, they can text, they kind of have the context of the organization. It's actually young people who...

like how do you if you're not scheduled on a zoom right how do you ride an elevator with the big boss and actually get your 30 seconds in um how do you stand in line for that you know mediocre salad and realize you're you happen to be standing in line with someone from another department and so i think part of this also is is i i'm a big proponent proponent also of in-person gathering when you but to start by asking what is the need here and for some of the need it's just connection you can do your work virtually but to actually feel like you are a part of a place place to actually build the trust so that when the going gets tough or lines of communication get really complicated, you give people the benefit of the doubt. You pick up the phone, you text them rather than being like, this is a black box, I don't really know anyone here, like, what's happening? And so I think it's a complex conversation that needs to start with when do we need to work, when do we need to meet, what is the nature of our work, right? A comedy writer's room, I was speaking with a writer in a comedy room a few months ago, and they said to me, as an introvert, and as somebody who doesn't enjoy the jockeying of the writer's room, I actually have found it incredibly helpful to have time away to write rather than time together.

Whereas the head of a newsroom told me recently, it is incredibly hard. He began to realize how many micro decisions are made in a moment across a group of people on how to cover breaking news. The nature of the work matters.

And so how to actually begin, and the last thing I'll just say is, Ray Ringel has a really good chart. chart on this in an HBR piece. She's a facilitator, and she has a graph, and it's basically when should we meet in person, and her hypothesis is the level of complexity, emotional complexity and intellectual complexity.

The more it increases, the more we benefit from being in person. And can you give context to that very thoughtful answer? Were you having any of these conversations about working remotely pre-March?

February, March 2020. Was anyone thinking about this? I was not. And I remember, again, while watching South by Southwest, all the tweets, it was a media storm about the cancellation.

It was a very interesting moment. And I remember one of the tweets that has most stuck with me comes from the researchers Sasha Constanza-Schock. They're a MIT researcher. They wrote this beautiful book called Design Justice.

And Sasha tweeted, during this fraught five-day period, Are they canceling or not? Disabled community, could you just hook up a live stream? Abled people, it's hard. Disabled community, could you just, not complicated, like can you just hook up a live stream? Disabled people, it's really complicated and really expensive.

Coronavirus 2019. Hi! Abled people, we're pleased to announce a state-of-the-art virtual live streaming system. Right?

And I say that in part because there have been communities who have been thinking about remote for a very long time. The disabled community is one with incredible nuance and sophistication. There have been companies that have been remote for 30 years, right?

There are certain companies that were built virtually and remotely. And so there are, like in most crises, there are communities of experts. you know, rather than like the Columbus thing of saying like, oh, now, you know, I know how to do this. But I will say, for me, when I wrote the book, The Art of Gathering in 2018, and for two years, I facilitated experiences and went around the country talking to people. And the most common question I got was, does this apply virtually?

And I would say, absolutely. These are principles, right? The principles of know why you're gathering. Why are we actually, what's the need here? What's the purpose?

Openings matter, right? The way you set up the context, infrastructure matters. How do you think about connecting your people and protecting them matters? That is absolutely like Twitter was not created to be a protective space, right? That wasn't the original purpose of that technology, and they've had to figure out, you know, reverse engineering.

How do we actually... Two years ago, they wrote this report called We Want to Be the Global Dinner Party. It's like, there's a lot of yelling at that global dinner party, right? And so I say that because...

What we have begun to all of us kind of become ambidextrous around is that whether you're virtually gathering or in-person gathering to begin to understand how do you have a relevant need and how do you help people meaningfully connect despite significant obstacles. Whether those significant obstacles are race and identity and ethnicity or interfaith dialogue which is my background or whether the significant obstacle is you can't be in the same room at the same time. How do we do this now? And the fact that we're asking those questions is progress. Great.

Asking questions. We are going to open it up to the audience. I believe there's a Slido channel for this.

You can ask questions there if you haven't already. And if that doesn't work, I think we can... Do we know how to do that? Is that on their phone?

Do you all know how to ask questions? on slido or we could just go back to old school and they could raise their hand i'm i'm fine with that this might be working while they're doing that one more question for you um again in the context of south by southwest you say say gathering meaningfully can take courage and require sticking your neck out a bit. You did this with the people. You got them to talk and that was fabulous. What other advice can you give people in terms of having the courage over the next few days to make the most out of this particular gathering?

I love that question. Gathering does take courage. Guesting takes courage.

work it's called the art of gathering it's not called the art of hosting in part because I think guests have extraordinary power to shape things and I'll answer the question with a story which is a couple of years ago and I have permission to share all the stories I share a couple of years ago my father was a civil servant and he for 30 years he worked for a government agency and he retired kind of I think it was a July it was this pre-pandemic and it's kind of like a It was a quiet time. A lot of people were on vacation. My dad's from the Midwest. He's kind of unassuming and doesn't want to make a fuss. And he was just kind of like, going to Irish exit 30 years of government service.

Just like, no fuss, no party, nothing. And one of his colleagues basically realized, oh, Ron's leaving. We need to do something. Let's have a lunch. Let's have a retirement lunch.

He kind of got it together. And again, it was kind of informal. It was last minute. And my stepmother heard about this.

And she was like, oh. Can I come? And he said, I guess so. So she tells me the story.

She goes. She arrives. There's a long table, lots of people, kind of buzzy, fun, excited to go and celebrate this guy.

And she sits down. And five minutes go by, warm chat, 10 minutes go by, 15 minutes go by, 20 minutes go by. And all of a sudden, she starts getting really nervous.

And she's like, is his retirement lunch just going to be lunch? After 30 years of service, are we just going to to chat and talk and like not, I was going to say consummate the marriage, maybe that's a bad metaphor, but like, you know, like something needs to happen, right? She began to observe like this, the purpose of this thing is to honor this guy.

And right now this feels like every other lunch. And so she took a big risk and she dung her glass and she stood up and she said she was like shaking and, you know, awkward. And she was like, hi, I'm Renee. I'm Ron's wife. And, you know.

And she, and she's, as she told me later, she was like, she was like, how, what do I actually say to like get this group to connect? She said, I know, I know home Ron, but I don't really know work Ron. Will you tell me about this guy?

And it was like silence. And then the small voice from the side of the table said, you know what, I'd like to say something. When I was an intern here and I had all these questions, Ron's desk was like really far from mine, but I would walk across the office to go talk to him because he never made me feel dumb.

He'd put down whatever you do and he'd look up. And then someone else was like, you know what, Ron is always the person who if you ask him anything, and then basically these stories started coming up. Someone else like at the pinnacle was like, You know, Ron is the guy who, he's a computer programmer, and at the end, once we find the algorithm, we need an acronym for the program, right?

And most people think it's a really boring process, like just slap an acronym on. Ron always makes it fun, and his personal coup was when he named one of our programs The PREA, after his daughter. It's like the Pesticide Reduction Information Act.

And all of a sudden, over like 40 minutes, The entire context changed, right? They began to gather. They were gathered, right?

They went from an individual group of people, and one, it was more interesting and more meaningful, but another, like at a deeper level, in those 40 minutes, in those 90 minutes, first, she connected them. She gave them a very subtle infrastructure and to know how to actually coordinate. How do we do this, right?

How do 12 people or 20 people do this? But the second is, for somebody who had served for 30 years, she changed the meaning. of his service to him, right?

40 minutes, 90 minutes, you take those stories for the rest of your life. What was my impact here? Oh, they noticed those small acts of kindness. Oh, they noticed what I was like.

And then for the people who remained, oh, people notice here treatment, right? Oh, I love that story. Oh, maybe I want to be more like that. And so I say gathering takes courage in part because first it just starts with observation. What's the need here?

Most people want to connect, we just don't know how, and we need a safe way to do it so it's equalizing. But then the second thing is, sometimes it doesn't work, you know? And so gathering is a practice, it's a learnable practice, and it takes courage.

And the last thing I'll say is, like, I do this, I try to do this, my friends know, like, sometimes it doesn't work, you try to find the right thing and it's awkward. But almost all, even now, for my own gatherings, I'm still nervous and shaky before it. I get, I don't, you know, I don't know how it's going to go well, but I know...

that it's better to come together and try to create meaning together and shape and connect and get off the script than to just go through the rote behaviors. And I wrote The Art of Gathering in 2018 because a lot of us were on autopilot. And I think we have an extraordinary moment to pause, to observe, to reimagine because how we gather right now is literally up for grabs. That's pretty good. Okay.

Should we do some questions? We have one more question. You've got a new project coming up. Tell us about that, please.

Oh, this is very South by. Okay, so thank you. So I, over the pandemic in part because we couldn't meet in person, I have been working on developing the first digital course for gathering.

It's called the Art of Gathering Digital Course, and we're going to launch in late spring. And it's basically a... Okay. an interactive virtual experience to learn the practical skills of how we gather. And if you, okay, this is like high tech for me.

If you take out your phones, you're allowed to take out your phones, and you text the word gather, G-A-T-H-E-R, gather, to 66866, then you can be the first to know about the course and also sign up for my monthly newsletter where every month I take on a story. Actually, the... The Renee story was the last month's newsletter example.

And we've also created some resources for you all on, I think it's priaparker.com slash SXSW, South by Southwest. You get your own handle. Nice.

Where we've put a free guide to how, if you want to plan a meaningful occasion, how do you actually, as a workbook, how do you actually begin to think about whether it's a baby shower or a team meeting or a retirement party, how do you actually do this in a way that begins to shift the way we would normally gather? That is gather to 66866. Yes. Is there a significance to that number?

Does anyone know that number? It's joined by text. I think it's a really cool tech.

But no, I think that's the number they use. You get to choose your word. So we were like, I know a word. Gather.

And it wasn't taken.

Transcript for:Insights on Meaningful Gatherings

Transcript for:
Insights on Meaningful Gatherings