Conference
Control the Room is now Facilitation Lab Summit
Control the Room
5th Annual Facilitator Summit
Deepen your knowledge on how to facilitate meetings that matter and connect with other facilitation and meeting practitioners.
This year’s theme is Impact — we’re exploring the ways in which our choices affect our outcomes, and the far-reaching effect we as facilitators can have on the world. Whether we’re assessing how attendees may respond to a workshop, designing an accessible facilitation space, or crafting a message to reach as many people as possible, we make decisions every day that have the potential for a significant impact on those we work with – and on ourselves.
We invite you to join us in this exploration, and are excited to be building an event we believe will have a lasting and positive impact.
We’re designing this year’s summit as more than a conference; we’ve chosen a venue overlooking beautiful Lake Travis to invite contemplation as well as connection. We’ve curated moments to support a richer attendee experience, and we’re excited to gather with you!
Date
February 7, 2023
Time
9am - 5pm CST
Location
Austin, Texas
This year our event will be held at the beautiful Vintage Villas on Lake Travis.
Interested in a private cohort for your team?
Available Ticket Types
VIP Ticket (limited)
In addition to three days of the Virtual Summit, access to virtual speaker round table on February 1, 2021 and receive mailed facilitator care package shipped to your door!
The speaker salon is a private intimate gathering for the speakers & a few VIP guests. Douglas, our founder, will facilitate and explore the meaning and importance of connection. We will reflect on the past and anticipate the future and will have a lot of fun in the process.
Live Ticket
Access to all three days of the Virtual Summit. 18 Speakers total, six Lightning Talks + six 90-min Workshops Per Day (attendees choose 1 workshop per day)
Summit Purpose
We are gathering to build and celebrate a community of practice for facilitators. It is paramount that we create a safe place to learn, grow, and advance as practitioners, and to engage in a dialogue that advances the practice of facilitation. We invite people who seek to lead better meetings and who seek to foster inclusivity across all voices. Our mission is share a global perspective of facilitators from different methodologies, backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations, cultures, and ages. If you know someone who would benefit from attending Control the Room and would bring valuable diversity to the event or is part of a traditionally underrepresented group, please nominate them here.
Speakers
Amy Luckey
Getting a bigger boat: Access and inclusion in action
Benjamin Herndon
A human-cognitive perspective on AI transformation
Corrie LoGiudice
Unstuck Yourself : Your Foolproof Strategy to Activate Extraordinary Action
Eric Brown
The Green Beret Approach
Jimbo Clark
Take the BOX Breakthrough Challenge
John Rabasa
Don't Be Clever: A fundamental insight from improv that goes beyond "yes, and...”
Matthew Reynolds
Biggest Fullest Brightest- Expanding instead of Climbing
Renita Joyce Smith
Discovering & Embodying your Authenticity - The Key to Getting Out of Your Own Way
Robbin Arcega
Digging into Mentorship: What is it, really?
Sana Akhand
Choosing Freedom
Taylor Cone
How Might We Measure "Impact Potential"?
Vincent Perez
Let’s Get to kwerk: Leveraging Digital Tools to Create Inclusive Facilitation Experiences
Yvonne Alston
The Ultimate Connection: Head, Heart and Soul
Zach Montroy
Leveraging Emotional Intelligence for Connection
Post-event Virtual speakers
Andrew Otwell
Storytelling for Facilitators
Feb 9, 4:00-4:45 pm CT
Andi Cuddington
The F* Word: Thinking of Failure as a Skill
Feb 16, 4:00-4:45 pm CT
Amy Lee
Start with the end in mind: Psychological Safety From Start to Finish
Feb 14, 2:00-2:45 pm CT
Florentine Versteeg
Facilitating Language Diversity & Inclusion
Feb 15, 10:00-10:45 am CT
Marisa Davis
Practicing Feedback In A Safe Environment: The Power of a Purposeful Warm-up Game
Feb 15, 2:00-2:45 Pm CT
Wait, What's Facilitation?
Whether you know it or not, you are probably a facilitator. The act of facilitating is to make an operation or process easier. Facilitation skills are crucial to exercise when planning and running meetings to make them as participative and productive as possible. It’s imperative to company profit and culture to conduct successful meetings. Perfecting the art of facilitation is one of the most important and beneficial skill sets that make a successful leader.
A skilled facilitator can supercharge a team’s performance by functioning as a process guide for navigating complicated business challenges. Facilitators are experts at leading groups through key meetings and gatherings. Facilitators exist to enable better gatherings between teams, stakeholders, or collaborators of any kind.
Want to join us?
Interested in bringing a team? Click here to get a code for 20% off groups of 3-4, or 30% off groups of 5+
Venue
Vintage Villas
There are limited rooms available at Vintage Villas. Please call (512) 266-9333 to reserve a room. We also have a room block at the Holiday Inn just .5 mile down the road. You can reserve those rooms here.
Apply for a Diversity Scholarship
A key part of our mission is to support diverse facilitators from different methodologies, backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations, cultures, and ages. If you are a part of, or serve, a traditionally underrepresented group and feel that this scholarship would allow you to amplify this mission, please apply now.
What People Are Saying
I loved the conference. As a relatively novice facilitator, I returned energized and inspired. When I signed up for the conference - I mostly did so because of rave reviews from my colleagues. It was a little hard to tell what I was getting into from the event page. There's so much value here for folks in leadership roles etc.
Vishal
UX SUPERVISOR
I realized my entire role is facilitation. I have to do a lot of lateral influencing. So I use these skills even if it is not a super-structured workshop. Our product team has micro meetings all the time, and these methods help us get the most of those moments. My team can lean on me to facilitate. You will redesign the way you have conversations. I can’t believe every college student doesn’t have to take a class like this. This is how you collaborate. It is the underpinning of the future of work.
Savannah
PRODUCT DESIGNER AT TAILWIND
Photo Disclaimer
Please note that photographs, video & audio recordings will be taken throughout this event. These will be used by Voltage Control for marketing and publicity in our publications, on our website and in social media, or in any third party publication. Please contact our event team if you have any concerns or if you wish to be exempted from this activity.
Refund Policy
All sales for workshops are final. The registered participant may invite another person to substitute their place at any time at no charge.
Code of Conduct
Voltage Control is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organizers.
Any form of written, social media, or verbal communication that can be offensive or harassing to any attendee, speaker or staff is not allowed at Control the Room Summits. Please inform a Voltage Control volunteer or staff member if you feel a violation has taken place and the conference leadership team will address the situation.
Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion; sexual images in public spaces; deliberate intimidation; stalking; following; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact; and unwelcome sexual attention. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
Partners are also subject to the anti-harassment policy. In particular, exhibitors should not use sexualized images, activities, or other material. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costumes or otherwise create a sexualized environment.
If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund. If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff immediately. Conference staff can be identified by t-shirts or located at the registration desk.
Conference staff will be happy to help participants contact hotel/venue security or local law enforcement, provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference. We value your attendance.
We expect participants to follow these rules at all conference venues and conference-related social events.
What to do when you witness a Code of Conduct violation?
All reports of incidents are confidential! We will not publish the name of the reporter in any way.
Speak up
Of course, we do not want you do get into a more uncomfortable position as you maybe already are. You do not need to interact with the person(s) who presumably violated the Code of Conduct.
Please let someone of the organizing team know
At all times, you will find someone at the registration desk or the conference host (the person introducing the speakers). All people who are working at a Control the Room Summit are very aware of the Code of Conduct. Approach them and let them know. In most cases they will bring you to one of the organizers, so we can write an incident report.
Important questions:
Who? Could you see the names of the people involved? Was it a speaker, attendee, service person, organizer, crew?
Where? In a session hall? In the foyer? At a partner booth? …
When? The approximate time of the behavior.
What?
- What were the circumstances that led to the incident?
- Verbal violation (“bad jokes”, discrediting, …)
- Visual violation (slide in the talk, T-Shirt with an inappropriate print…)
- Inappropriate physical interaction (violence of any kind)
Everyone working at a CTO Summit is informed on how to deal with an incident. If everyone involved is physically safe, we will only ask for security help or law enforcement at the victim’s request.
Report a Violation
Please reach out to Douglas Ferguson directly:
Email: douglas@voltagecontrol.com
Phone: 512.293.7279
The Purpose of the Code of Conduct
Our Code of Conduct does not exist because we expect to deal with any such problems.
