Coach the new session designers; do not just open the gates.

technique — attributed to Lauren Kotkin

Kotkin and a colleague coached each accepted session designer through two or three required calls plus optional follow-ups. The biggest recurring problem was lack of focus: designers tried to fit two and a half hours of content into seventy-five-minute slots. Kotkin's response was to push back. You have seventy-five minutes. You have not yet created the best program for what you need to get across. The coaching investment produces sessions that land. Without it, the open-proposals process trades quality for breadth. With it, the process gets both new voices and durable quality. The discipline applies to any participatory program that wants to expand its contributor base without losing standards.

For conference programmers, learning leaders, and program directors running open-call processes. The technique is most useful as a structural investment when the team has decided to expand contributor access.

coaching, session-design, content-quality, scaffolding