What Makes the Aspen Business & Society Summit So Special?

<p class="has-h5-variant wp-block-paragraph"></p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">In July, we welcomed 200 business leaders, scholars, and&nbsp;practitioners to Aspen for our fifth annual <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/business-and-society-program/summit/">Business &amp; Society Summit</a>. Over four days, we&nbsp;invited&nbsp;participants to step outside their day-to-day roles, engage with&nbsp;new ideas&nbsp;and perspectives, and&nbsp;deepen&nbsp;relationships with one another.&nbsp;</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every year, our participants leave us glowing reviews about how our Summit is so distinct from other events they experience.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Our team spends months working behind the scenes to design an experience that we hope strengthens both insight and community. From the questions we put on the agenda to the way we set up a room—and all of the details in between—we make each choice with intention. When it all comes together, we hope the experience feels natural, spacious, and distinctly Aspen.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">As the members of our team responsible for leading the design of the Summit program and logistics, we’re excited to share the principles that guide our process.</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <p class="has-h6-variant wp-block-paragraph">1. Ask Big Enough Questions That Center Shared Concerns</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">At a time when emerging technologies and shifting geopolitical dynamics are driving unprecedented disruption across organizations and sectors, many senior leaders find their days consumed with the task of bringing stability to systems vulnerable to turbulence and disorder. They&#8217;re managing personnel challenges and supply chain risks, fluctuating or rising prices, and the silencing effects of political change. Amidst these many complex challenges, leaders often struggle to find time to consider the big environmental, sociological, and cultural factors driving such rapid change.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">To formulate our agenda, we prioritize listening to people in our community to understand the specific dynamics they&#8217;re facing in their roles. We seek to anchor sessions around questions that address shared interests and concerns in ways that are simultaneously practical and aspirational. We hope that, in any given room, people will find both shared experience and differentiated perspectives. By framing conversations around questions, we invite participants to counter possibilities rather than confirm existing thinking. Asking bold questions, challenging assumptions, and staying open to new ideas allows deeper insight and fresh possibilities to emerge.&nbsp;<a id="_msocom_1"></a></p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <p class="has-h6-variant wp-block-paragraph">2. Prioritize Active Engagement</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">While plenaries provide important bookends to any good multiday event, it&#8217;s more helpful to see keynote speakers as banner provocateurs for your event&#8217;s key central questions than experts with all the answers. The challenge is, passively listening to any one person for too long will compel most people to pull out their phone and tune out. Impressive mainstage speakers may help a newcomer make the decision to attend, but the highest value actually comes from interactions with others in the room.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Regardless of the question on the table, format and facilitation are essential supports for dialogue that invites people into this kind of rich engagement with peers. Through roundtables, breakout discussions, and dinner dialogues, we seek to maximize space for peer learning and relationship development.</p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <p class="has-h6-variant wp-block-paragraph">3. Harness Tension to Deepen Understanding</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It&#8217;s surprisingly easy for discussions among peers to devolve into one easy answer to a difficult question. As experience designers, it&#8217;s our job to make sure there are voices in the room that are varied and distinct enough to show multiple dimensions of a topic. We think of a question like a rubber band: our ability to stretch, to uncover new ideas, depends directly on the differentiation of perspectives in the room. Because a lot of people spend most of their time engaging with others who have a similar shared experience (be that their employer, hometown, or family), hearing from people you may not immediately agree with can be exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. The degree of divergence we achieve in any given year on any one topic varies, and depends on a host of factors (many outside our direct control), but this imperative is perpetually on our minds. </p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <p class="has-h6-variant wp-block-paragraph">4. Design for Care</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Hospitality at an event is more than just a warm welcome at registration. It’s the accumulation of small signals that tell participants we thought about everything they might need to be fully present. From our event app design to our printed agenda cards that help those who wish to disconnect, we know that little details make a big difference.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Helping people connect beyond their job title can spur lasting relationships. This summer, participants could add “Ask Me About” stickers to their nametags, which gave them permission to share something personal—and gave everyone they met at the conference an easy way to start a conversation. My colleague spent ten minutes talking to someone about beekeeping. Two participants wrote “Camino de Santiago” and connected about pilgrimage. Small touches like these can make a large gathering feel more intimate and more human.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Throughout the event, our team stays visible and available, with a central hub where participants know they can always find a person who can help. Those small interactions have an outsized impact on how participants experience the event, and we try to engage with every participant with warmth, attentiveness, and flexibility.</p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <p class="has-h6-variant wp-block-paragraph">5. Make Logistics Invisible</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every operational decision we make is really a decision about where participants spend their cognitive energy. At a multi-day event, there are countless small things participants need to know: where to go next, when the shuttle leaves, what to wear, where to find coffee. Our goal is to minimize the amount of attention these logistics require, so participants can spend their energy engaging with ideas and each other. That means we overcommunicate, unapologetically, sharing the same information through multiple channels.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We also try to anticipate needs before they become questions: arranging transportation when we can, providing food and refreshments throughout the day, and accommodating dietary restrictions and accessibility needs. When the logistics recede into the background, participants have more space to be fully present. </p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained"> <p class="has-h6-variant wp-block-paragraph">6. Create the Conditions for Connection</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">Some of the most meaningful conversations at a convening happen outside the formal agenda, but that doesn’t mean they happen entirely by accident. As experience designers, we work hard to create the conditions that make it easier for people to find one another, start a conversation, and form a connection that can continue after the event ends.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We know that not everyone connects in the same way, so we offer different kinds of opportunities for these interactions to happen. A sunrise nature walk, a post-dinner s’mores gathering, or a guided hike and meditation create space for more personal conversations that might never happen inside a meeting room.&nbsp;“Blind dinner dates” invite participants to sign up for dinner at a local restaurant with five to seven other Summit attendees—without knowing who will join them. These experiences give people a chance to form deeper connections over a shared meal.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">We think just as intentionally about the structure of space. Many of our session rooms are set with round tables, conference tables, or pods: set-ups that make it easy to turn to the person next to you and start talking. We include interactive elements like marble polls or sticker-dot voting onsite to give people a natural reason to approach one another. Each of these choices is small, but together they give relationships more opportunities to take root.</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/> <p style="padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small)" class="wp-block-paragraph">Great events can feel effortless when you’re experiencing them, but that feeling is the result of hundreds (maybe even thousands) of small and large intentional choices behind the scenes. For us, that’s the magic of this work: making choices that create the conditions for new insights to emerge and new relationships to take root, in ways that strengthen the courage and conviction of senior leaders to ensure business supports humanity’s long-term health and well-being.</p> </div> <div class="wp-block-group is-style-contour-lines has-primary-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained" style="margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--medium)"> <div class="wp-block-buttons alignwide is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-adafaf49 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex" style="padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall)"> <div class="wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-50 is-style-default"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-text-align-center wp-element-button" href="https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/jCdJpUB/insideview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span>SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER<span class="wp-block-button__effect"></span></span><svg class="svg svg--svg-assets-svg-icon-angle-right" role="img" focusable="false" height="24" width="24"><use xlink:href="#svg-assets-svg-icon-angle-right"/></svg></a></div> </div> <p class="has-text-align-center has-medium-variant wp-block-paragraph"><strong>The Business &amp; Society Inside View</strong></p> <p class="has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph" style="padding-top:0;padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--xsmall)">Want more insights like these? Sign up to receive thought leadership and updates from the Business &amp; Society Program each month!</p> </div> <p>The post <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/what-makes-the-aspen-business-society-summit-so-special/">What Makes the Aspen Business &#038; Society Summit So Special?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org">Aspen Institute</a>.</p>