Gatheround hosted our very first Campfire, “All in on All Hands,” on September 7th — an exclusive conversation for friends of the platform, emceed by our CEO and co-founder, Lisa Conn, and featuring a panel of expert facilitators from Gusto, Calendly, and Lattice.
We laughed, we danced, and we learned a lot. We won’t lie to you; it was a good time. But, if you missed your chance to gather around the Campfire with us (or just want to relive the fun), read on for a summary of everything we covered. (Disclaimer: side effects of Campfire Summary™️ may include FOMO.)
Highlights:
We gathered. Lisa Conn, our cofounder and CEO, was our host with the most. We also had a trio of superstar panelists in attendance:
- Dave Carhart, VP of People Strategy Group at Lattice
- Sanjeev (Sun-jeev), Onboarding Facilitator at Gusto
- Larry Cloud, Onboarding Specialist at Calendly.
We learned. We found out A LOT about the current state of meetings — especially high-stakes, knowledge-sharing meetings like All Hands. Did you know:
- 75% of people admit to multitasking — meaning anything from other work tasks to online shopping — during meetings?
- 62% of managers think meetings miss opportunities to bring people together?
- A company of 200 people will waste $5 MILLION a year on ineffective, inefficient meetings? Yikes.
We explored. Thanks to hours of research interviews with our customers and community, we know what teams need: Dynamic, structured All Hands meetings that bring people together and encourage participation and engagement.
- Lisa explained what Gatheround is doing to redesign the meeting from the ground up
- New Activities: Use Presentation for seamless screen sharing and time-boxing, and Ask a Question for moderated Q&A and rapid ideation! Plus, try Flash Cards for sharing agendas, Polls to pulse the audience, and big improvements to Group Share.
- New Features: Use Recording to capture all the action in the main room and switch between three layouts to adjust your Gatheround experience to the moment. Try out background blur, post-meeting recaps, and much more!
- New Agenda Templates: Explore our new collection of 8 curated All Hands templates — all assembled from engaging, high-impact activity blocks. Or check out our Teamwork & Collaboration tab, full of dozens of ready-made team meetings. And we’ve just released our first set of Performance Management templates — a must for teams trying to make the performance review process more engaging and less stressful.
We heard from the experts. Sanjeev, Larry, and Dave gave us an insider’s view of the facilitation process, letting the group in on their best tips and advice for creating a meaningful, high-quality, and inclusive meeting experience. Some highlights:
- Larry explained how meetings provide clarity and certainty, noting: “We live in an environment that’s ever-changing. Meetings are a space for our leadership, our decision-makers to provide certainty. One of the things that will lead people to be disengaged within a company is when there's this feeling of gloom and uncertainty that's hanging over them. Meetings allow us to really outline: here are the things that we know. Which allows a lot more engagement, a lot more trust, and a lot more transparency.”
- Dave recommended two strategies for engaging people in large meetings, offering, “One thing that works is getting people into small groups, so they have enough opportunity and comfort to speak and fully engage. The other is mixing it up across organizational boundaries. When we went remote first, suddenly the connections across departments really started to fray. Helping folks break down those boundaries is really important.”
- Sanjeev spoke to the important role inclusivity plays in engaging the team. “I always start [onboarding] with Gusto's approach to representation, inclusion, social impact, and equity. I start there to affirm our humanity. You're bringing all parts of you to work. We are not playing that game anymore where you take off your identities or you code switch. Especially for marginalized identities to have to code switch, it's such an energy drain. And so I want to come in from that space and say, "You're perfect as you are. Your talent and your energy brought you here, so let me stamp that, highlight that and take you through the resources."
And that’s just a snapshot of all of the thoughtful insights our panelists provided. Check out the recording at the bottom of the page for more!
We had fun! We jammed to Dua Lipa and Pharrell, sent up a veritable storm of reaction emojis, cracked jokes in the chat, talked about the big and small stuff, and, of course, posed for a stellar group shot. We wish you were there!
If you want to experience Campfire for yourself, watch the recording below or read the transcript.
And keep an eye on our homepage for the next Campfire! Don’t forget the marshmallows :)