Designing meetings, a wave or a particle?

What is at the very heart of the meeting design process? Is it a procedure, a logical sequence of questions and answers that ultimately leads to an idea, a format, a story? Or quite the opposite? Is it a holy spark that suddenly appears without substance nor mass?

We are looking at rationality versus inspiration and logic versus divinity.

It looks like fundamental questions in elementary physics. Is a photon a wave or a particle? The answer is, as we know right now, a particle as well as a wave. Very hard to understand, but true. Does that help us to see the nature of the design process? Yes.

Meeting Design Week 2019

Designing needs a procedure as well as a holy spark. It needs the right questions as well as the right amount of divine inspiration. In the end, it is all about energy, and that is the only thing that counts for a meeting designer. Why? Because designing is done to put things in motion, and Newton’s second law taught us that energy is required to do so.

Now if you want to know about the rationalities in designing, please read our book Into the Heart of Meetings, or try to find a book about the cooking in El Bulli. Their Chef, Ferran, uses different creative methodologies to create new dishes. Fascinating.

To find a holy spark, I would recommend to start with Süskinds The Perfume. A fascinating book about the world of fragrances. After all, to make a design work, the senses need to be stimulated, one way or another. In The Perfume a very innovative way to do that unfolds. Buckle up, it is horrible…or shall I say full of anti-matter?