Workshop Design
Voltage Control Workshop Design for SXSW Workshop Presenters
Crafting Impactful Experiences
With Douglas Ferguson and Erik Skogsberg
January 21, 2025
6pm - 7:30pm CST
Live Online
Calling all 2025 SXSW Workshop presenters! The best workshops are impactful experiences that leverage learning experience design principles that create lasting transformation. Would you like expert guidance and learning design best practices for your workshop? Our friends at Voltage Control are offering an exclusive virtual session to help you prepare. Not only might it be helpful in planning your SXSW workshop, but you will find the material useful for your everyday facilitation and training purposes.
About Workshop Design for SXSW Presenters:
In Voltage Control’s workshop design session, we’ll introduce the foundational learning science and learning experience design principles that you can bring to your session to maximize participant potential. Using our proven Workshop Design Canvas, you’ll apply your learning to your SXSW session.
The Workshop Design Canvas is a visual tool for designing workshops, meetings, training courses, and more. Ultimately, when we’re bringing people together and seeking a shared outcome, it’s essential to account for how our brains work and for the real human beings taking part in the experience.
Regardless if you consider yourself a seasoned trainer or first time workshop facilitator, these techniques will improve engagement, retention, and participant commitment during and after your workshop. If you value true adoption and continued growth, this workshop is for you!
About Workshop Design for SXSW Presenters:
In Voltage Control’s workshop design session, we’ll introduce the foundational learning science and learning experience design principles that you can bring to your session to maximize participant potential. Using our proven Workshop Design Canvas, you’ll apply your learning to your SXSW session.
The Workshop Design Canvas is a visual tool for designing workshops, meetings, training courses, and more. Ultimately, when we’re bringing people together and seeking a shared outcome, it’s essential to account for how our brains work and for the real human beings taking part in the experience.
Regardless if you consider yourself a seasoned trainer or first time workshop facilitator, these techniques will improve engagement, retention, and participant commitment during and after your workshop. If you value true adoption and continued growth, this workshop is for you!
January 21, 2025
6pm - 7:30pm CST
Live Online
Interested in a private cohort for your team?
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Agenda
Deep Work Session 1
Debunking learning myths and identifying your facilitation purpose
Deep Work Session 2
Exploring learning design principals and designing for your learners
Deep Work Session 3
Redesigning your workshop for optimal learning
Deep Work Session 4
Reflecting forward for lasting growth and transformation
Who Should Attend
Facilitators
who want to their message and methods to stick with participants
Trainers
who want to build engaging and impactful learning for staff and clients
Project Managers
who want to create enduring value alongside their teams
Executives
who want to sustain organizational learning
Key Takeaways
Learn key learning experience design principles for impactful facilitation
Build community with fellow SXSW workshop presenters
Practice applying learning insights and get real time feedback on your activities
Gain hands-on experience with a proven visual tool that simplifies planning and enhances the effectiveness of any workshop, meeting, or training session.
Featured Facilitators
Douglas Ferguson
Douglas Ferguson is an entrepreneur, educator, and human-centered technologist. He is the founder and president of Voltage Control, a facilitation academy that develops leaders through certifications, workshops, and organizational coaching focused on facilitation mastery, innovation, and play. He has helped transform leaders, innovators, and creatives from Nike, U.S. SOCOM, Google, the Air Force, Gap, Tesla, MSU, Church & Dwight, Apple, Adobe, Dropbox, Fidelity, Vrbo, Liberty Mutual, Humana, and SAIC. Douglas is a thought leader and author of four books: Magical Meetings, Beyond the Prototype, How to Remix Anything, and Start Within.
Erik Skogsberg
Erik believes that a deep empathy and caring, rooted in human-centered design, systems thinking, and futures thinking best supports partners in finding their solutions. Erik is passionate about supporting clients imagining innovative approaches to complex organizational challenges.
Trained as an educator, designer, researcher, and change agent, he brings significant teaching, design, mentoring, professional learning and development, organizational change, and research experiences from across secondary, higher education, non-profit, and industry contexts. Whether working with individuals, teams, or organizations, he helps people design lasting growth and innovation. Prior to working with Voltage Control, he co-founded Michigan State University’s Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology, an internal design consultancy focused on learning experience design, innovation, and organizational transformation.
He earned his B.A. in English Literature from Western Washington University, M.A.T. in Secondary English Education from Brown University, and Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education.
Trained as an educator, designer, researcher, and change agent, he brings significant teaching, design, mentoring, professional learning and development, organizational change, and research experiences from across secondary, higher education, non-profit, and industry contexts. Whether working with individuals, teams, or organizations, he helps people design lasting growth and innovation. Prior to working with Voltage Control, he co-founded Michigan State University’s Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology, an internal design consultancy focused on learning experience design, innovation, and organizational transformation.
He earned his B.A. in English Literature from Western Washington University, M.A.T. in Secondary English Education from Brown University, and Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education.
What People are Saying
"If you want to make your message stick, work with Erik. Erik helped me and my co-author develop an online course for our book "Make Time" and coached us on teaching workshops for our other book, "Sprint". Erik's mastery of the latest education research, his ability to quickly synthesize what we were trying to accomplish, and clear, actionable advice were priceless. If you're considering developing a new talk, workshop, training, or online course, Erik will help you get from a fuzzy idea to a crisp and effective plan. Highly recommended."
Jake Knapp
C0-AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER SPRINT AND MAKE TIME
"Jake Knapp and I worked with Erik to design the curriculum and learning experience for a new online course. From the first moments of our conversation, I knew Erik was going to make a huge contribution to the project. He bridges education, experience, and behavioral design in a way that is incredibly rare and tremendously valuable. Plus, he's got a super casual facilitation style that makes it easy to jump in and start making progress. During the all-day workshop that Erik facilitated, we moved effortlessly through the design process and ended up with a great structure and plan for our course. Jake and I are both experienced facilitators, and it was a joy to experience and benefit from Erik's facilitation skills! Jake and I are already thinking of new reasons to work with Erik."
John Zeratsky
C0-AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER SPRINT AND MAKE TIME
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 events manager if you have any concerns or if you wish to be exempted from this activity.
