I’ve been reading a few articles about neuroscience, thinking and just general distraction from the daily flow of information recently, including this post from the New York Times.

All of this got me thinking about how we think at events and how we design events to allow for thinking time.

Much has been written about in support of attendee engagement, using channels like Twitter to increase engagement and open up conversation, more opportunities for remote engagement through hybrid event methodologies and adding virtual components to a live event, including the addition of social media integrated into that experience so that remote audiences can both engage with the live event and with each other.

So, let me first say that I have been a proponent of all of this as a new avenue of both attendee engagement and more active participation as both an audience member and as a speaker.

But, I will also tell you that it worries me.  It worries me that we are not yet at a place where our brains are so rewired that we can fully pay attention to the content of a presentation and try and write about it, tweet about it or anything else simultaneously – and that we are, in fact, doing ourselves a disservice in terms of acquiring knowledge and leaving our brains open to thinking about big ideas or concepts being presented when we are trying to multitask our way through oftentimes dense subject matter while attempting another activity.

I know this will likely be controversial to my social media friends.   Heck, it might even be controversial for me as I’ve become accustomed to being able to comment on presentations and conference attendance in real time.

One way around this is something I’ve talked to a number of event professionals I converse with regularly.  That is the concept of “white space” or just thinking and discussion space that would take place just after a presentation, especially a major presentation like a keynote.  It might be possible to just take that time, whether it be 45 or 60 minutes of a keynote, put down all the digital devices and really just listen and pay attention.  Then, if we could create time to have small groups of people come together immediately afterwards to talk about what was just heard and either take notes then, or whiteboard them out, then we could all get back on our devices and post our communications and further the discussion, possibly with far more purpose and insight than a half-listening tweet might produce.

Part of the problem is that event organizers and program designers often feel the need to fill up every available moment with more and more content.  So much so that there is no room to breathe or really absorb what is going on around you.  There is no consideration for fresh air,  meditative thinking space or any kind of space that really gives room for real learning or memory or retention of information.  The question I always have is, is all that content really necessary?  Would we serve our attendees and learners better with less content and more time for discussion? Are we, in fact, actually contributing to higher levels of overload, frustration and even depression by providing too much information?

I’d love to try an experiment – this is a hint to my friends that run Event Camp – where we do one day of a conference with all the usual devices and tons of content, and another day where we all agree to leave the devices home, just bring our brains and truly network with each other by talking about what is presented.

What do you all think?