What If Every Government Briefing Was 5 Minutes Long?
A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to deliver an Ignite presentation for The Public Manager / ASTD's "Government Workforce: Learning Innovations" event. If you're not familiar with the Ignite format, it's like a shorter version of TEDTalks developed by O'Reilly. You get 20 slides that automatically rotate at 15 seconds each so that you're forced to keep moving forward with your presentation and finish in 5 minutes.
Here's a quick description from my co-presenter Lauree Ofstrosky in a 5-minute presentation entitled "Ignite Your Workforce":
Here's an example of how it could be used as a government briefing from John Ohab on "How DoD Uses Technology to Communicate Science":
And, finally, here's my presentation on "Everything I Need to Know I Learned Online", which makes the case for informal learning through online communities like GovLoop (with a gratuitous pic of my cute-as-a-button son :-).
So my questions for you are:
1. What if we could get more government briefings to follow this 5-minute format?
2. How could you see it being implemented in your organization?
Comment
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Comment by Ari Herzog, MPA on February 24, 2012 at 10:26am -
One of my hats is serving as an elected city councilor and it is common for officials to brief us at meetings, whether elaborating the background or responding to a basic question and taking 5 minutes or less to talk. Yes, yes, there are occasional 20-minute rants when I and other councilors fall asleep; but the typical committee meeting to deliberate an item takes 5 minutes of an overview presentation and 20 minutes (or more) of discussion.
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Comment by Vlad Malik on February 24, 2012 at 9:54am -
It seems some people jumped the gun a bit and misread the title of the post. It says "briefing", not "meeting". Yes, I think a briefing (a one-way, oral summary of a specific issue) should be concise, so you make more time for the discussion that follows. Briefing + Discussion = Meeting
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Comment by Idris Busari on February 24, 2012 at 9:11am -
It would ensure that good ideas don't get muddled up in debate cluster and interruptions in long speeches leading to a better government.
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Comment by Justin Kerr-Stevens on February 22, 2012 at 9:47am -
I think the ignite format is a brilliant idea. Many years ago at the height of the Foot and Mouth Disease Crisis the Department fo Environment and Rural Affairs was - er- borrowed by the military to cope with the crisis.
One of the results of having armed soldiers in a central government building was that they seemed to feel meetings weren't that useful and would host a stand-up 'bird table' meeting for no longer than 10 minutes. After the crisis was over, the 'bird table' format seemed to stick. I'm not sure this would work for every government organisation - but it certainly struck me as a more efficient way of doing things.
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Comment by John Ohab on February 21, 2012 at 5:07pm -
That was a great experience! Thanks for sharing this, Andy.
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Comment by Andrew Krzmarzick on February 20, 2012 at 11:42am -
Pat - That's what I was thinking...that it might be tough to cover everything in 5 minutes. But it's an important exercise that could be helpful - even cutting a 20 minute presentation in half would be helpful.
Scott - I like the idea of a monthly stand up with cross-organizational units sharing their latest projects with each other - folks that occasionally work together, but aren't completely informed. It presents the opportunity for serendipitous discovery of overlapping / shared priorities...and creates a chance to recognize people's work.
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Comment by Scott Primeau on February 17, 2012 at 3:02pm -
This is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. Although, requiring 20 slides from each presenter during staff meetings might be a bit much, but creating a 5-minute limit sounds promising.
A colleague and I have brainstormed holding periodic Ignite events in the office to encourage employee development, morale, and engagement. But, we haven't laid any solid plans yet. Thanks for the encouragement!And, Andy, nice work on your Ignite!
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Comment by Dave Hebert on February 17, 2012 at 1:54pm -
This has been done at the Federal Web and New Media conference to great effect. I think it's a great way to cover a lot of ground quickly and give you just enough to know whether you want to dive deeper if you choose, not force you to dive deeper if you don't want to. Hey, that's kinda like good web design!
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Comment by Dorothy Ramienski Amatucci on February 17, 2012 at 11:40am -
I feel like the Ignite format is doing to presentations what Twitter did to email. Sometimes less is more ... but sometimes it can just be confusing. I do think it's something more organizations should try, though. If nothing else, it's a great mental exercise!
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Comment by Pat Fiorenza on February 17, 2012 at 10:25am -
That's interesting - I think in some situations a 5 minute briefing would be enormously beneficial for agencies. The challenge I see is that in certain areas, it would be nearly impossible to get across your brief in 5 minutes. I think it would be a great way to get energy and citizens behind initiatives - especially seeing more dynamic and captivating presentations by government. I think for the right topic, it could be a powerful tool. In other situations, could present a lot of challenges. In grad school we often had to present our elevator speech on topics. It's a great exercise to be able to condense information and quickly get your point across - also challenging! Interested to hear other examples being used by agencies..
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