Last Monday, I attended an IxDA event at the Adaptive Path studios. The talk, “Herding Cats and Taming Lions,” was given by Jon Littell, a user experience director from Hot Studios. I had no clear expectation of what I was to hear, and so with an open mind. The event was great, with a pleasant pre-presentation meet & greet period, and great turn out. Also, the cheese and crackers were dee-lish.

Littell brings his background in Psychology studies to bear in his approaches to facilitating, and proved to be a great presenter, offering a wealth of psychological concepts that can be tapped to understand individuals and get the most out of people who are taking part in group brainstorming.

A couple of key concepts that I was able to retain include the notion that any facilitator must enable participants to express themselves in a way that is in line with their own needs. Using personality type maps, Littell pointed out that people are motivated by- and like to express themselves in different ways. I’ve been part of many brainstorming groups and I will say that the quality of the facilitator is usually essential to extracting the value hidden within the hearts and minds of the brain stormers.

He highlighted the efforts of an outfit call The Grove, a band of consultants who practice a method called ‘graphic facilitation’; roughly, a way to guide conversations using visual cues and mapping to capture ideas and propel the collective thought processes. Also of note is the de Bono Hat concept, also conceived as a means to enhance the thought process, but more specifically a method to describe unique psychographic profiles that then may be adopted by individuals or groups as they engage in disucssions.

My descriptions above are clearly inadequate in their attempts to capture Littell’s presentation, but the larger point remains: the IxDA hosts terrific events that draw a group of talented designers and terrific speakers. People pay thousands of dollars to attend ‘conferences’ that contain lots of the kind of ideas that you can find in talks like this, for free.