Making Networking Work for Everyone: The Neuro‑Inclusive Guide

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Hello everybody and welcome along to the Event Industry News Podcast
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with me, James Dixon, wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon, or evening,
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whenever or wherever you tune into today's podcast
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from. As always, recording on a Monday morning from home, the Monday
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after Spain have won the World Cup. So for context,
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you know, if you're listening to this on a future date, you know exactly when
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I'm recording this. And yeah, for any of our Spanish followers
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for the podcast, and of course if you work in the events industry and you
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are from Spain, congratulations. Congratulations to you all. The end of a
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huge global event. And that's
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exactly why we're here on the podcast every week, is to talk about events,
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to talk about things that are happening. And I'm delighted to say that on today's
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podcast, not one but two guests to give me an
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insight into something that they've been collaborating on. And we'll find out more
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about that as we get into the episode. My guests today are Anita McDonald,
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marketing manager at Meet Cambridge, and Andy Williamson, the founder
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at Welcome Brain Consulting, and we're going to be talking about the new Neuro-Inclusive
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Networking Guide that launched just a few weeks ago at The Meeting Show.
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So let's welcome our guests, Anita and Andy.
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A very warm welcome to the podcast, you both. Morning. Thank you.
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Hello. Nice. Let's start by getting to know a little
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bit about you both before we get into what I introduced there at the start
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of the podcast, this new Neuro-Inclusive Networking Guide.
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Anita, let's come to you first of all. Welcome along to the podcast, a first-time
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guest. Well, to both of you, of course, as first-time guests, but tell us a
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little bit about yourself, Anita, and exactly what your role is at Meet Cambridge and
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what Meet Cambridge is. Okay, thanks, James,
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and just wanted to echo congratulations Spain, viva España,
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and all of that. Well done, everybody. So yeah,
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my name's Anita MacDonald, I'm the marketing manager at Meet
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Cambridge. So we are predominantly a venue finding
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agency for anybody who's looking to host any
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type of event in Cambridge, and we
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have links with the Cambridge colleges and university buildings as
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well as strategic relationships with venues in and around the city.
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So my job predominantly is marketing
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Cambridge to event professionals and how it can work
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for them. I was going to say, if that background's anything to go by,
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it shouldn't take much marketing. It shouldn't take much marketing.
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Yeah, that's my next-door neighbour.
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Fabulous, thanks Anita. And Andy, same to you, tell us a little bit about yourself
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and what Welcome Brain is as an organization. So yeah, so Welcome Brain
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is a neurodiversity consultancy, so we work—
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anything to do with neurodiversity is our jam really, and that's quite a broad range
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of things. So we provide workshops and trainings and consultancy,
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policy help, things like that, but we do a lot of work in the events
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industry through what we're going to talk about today. But through the
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ABCO working group that we joined, we've done a lot of work on networking
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in events— sorry, neuroinclusion in events. We put together about
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a year ago the Neurodiversity in Events Checklist,
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which is a guide on how to make your events neuroinclusive, a free guide
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I might add, on how to make your events neuroinclusive. We also have a
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neuroinclusive venue accreditation, so venues can get accredited, show off
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their credentials, and then we just recently launched the networking
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guide on how you can make networking neuroinclusive. So everything we do is driven by
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the idea of making things actionable, practical, easy to access, and so
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that people actually do it. And, and yeah, please,
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Anita, jump in. Thank you. I just wanted to
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say that whilst the focus is around neurodiversity,
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with the task force that Andy and I belong to
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under the APCO umbrella, something that we've found,
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and this is something that Andy champions, is that
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when you start looking after your neurodiverse community
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and attendees, it actually benefits everybody.
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So whilst we're using this umbrella of neurodiversity,
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actually the changes that you bring into your events will
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benefit everybody. So it's kind of like, I don't want it
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to kind of like be pigeonholed that it's all about neurodiversity. Whilst that's what
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our focus is today and on this podcast, it's As I said,
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it does, it benefits everybody. Absolutely. And I'm sure, I'm sure
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we'll, we'll touch more on that and, and sort of talk in a little bit
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more detail on that. But let's, let's take it back to the actual guide itself
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first of all and get into some sort of the, the obvious questions that people
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may be sort of shouting now down towards their devices as they listen to us
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today. What prompted it first of all, Anita? What was the sort of the driving
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factor behind it? What was the, you know, the, the genesis of this, uh,
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guide being, uh, researched and then produced?
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So I think as Andy alluded to a moment ago is that we created
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a new neurodiversity events checklist about
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a year ago, and it went down really,
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really well, and we kind of wanted to keep the momentum going,
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so we came together as a group and thought, right, what can we look
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at next? And we, I think we put a poll out as well
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to event professionals within AbCo and within our own networks about asking
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people what do you want us to look at next? And networking
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came up high. And, you know,
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I'm not neurodiverse, I see myself as neurotypical,
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but even I struggle with networking, going into a room when I don't
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know anybody, the noise levels as
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well. And when you see people talking in little cliques,
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I find it overwhelming. And I'm just thinking, if I find myself as
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neurotypical, what is it like for somebody who identifies
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or who even perhaps has neurodiverse characteristics
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and hasn't even realized they're in that,
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that sphere? How on earth does it feel for them? So that's kind
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of how it came about. Um, and what
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we did is that we put a survey together and we put it out to
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anybody who's ever attended an event. Doesn't matter whether it's
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a conference, a meeting, a dinner, a networking a family gathering,
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and it didn't matter whether they were an ABCO member or not, or an event
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professional. We opened it up to everybody, um, within our networks,
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asking them questions about how, how they feel when
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they attend an event. How does— and, and around networking, how does it
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make them feel, and what changes would they like to see?
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And I think the overwhelming result was, um,
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nobody likes it. Traditional format of all being shoved
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in the same room with catering, glasses clinking, lots of
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noise, music going on, quite bright lights— nobody
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likes it. So it kind of begs the question, if nobody
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likes it, why are we sticking to this traditional format?
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Something needs to give, something needs to change, and that's
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kind of how we started to evolve it. Andy, is there
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anything you wanted to add to that? Because obviously you collated the results. I mean,
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no, I mean I get we all start from the same position, is anecdotally,
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I think we're all uncomfortable with networking as is, and we all sort of swapped
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horror stories. But I mean, from a neuroinclusion perspective, the 2
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most common things that neurodivergent people can traditionally struggle with are crowds and
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sensory overload. And those 2 things are what networking
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is really. So as sort of a first principles perspective,
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it seemed like it was ripe for reexamination. So that was where we started.
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That was the problem we identified. And then it turned out from
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doing the survey that most people did agree with us. Neurotypical and neurodivergent people agreed
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with us. Was there a stereotypical networking scene
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that was created almost like as a, you know, right,
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that there's sort of 90% of scenarios
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that we are referencing here? Because when I think of networking and
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Anita, forgive me if I've misunderstood this, but the way that you
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were describing it, I'm thinking, you know, classic hotel conference room,
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150 people walking in there, teas, coffees and everything. But,
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you know, networking goes on at huge trade shows, you know,
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places like Excel and the NEC. Networking goes on
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awards dinners. You know, Andy, was there a sort
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of a benchmark? Was there a stereotypical layout and scenario
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that was painted in order to sort of create this list? Yeah.
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And that was borne out by the results of the survey, actually, is what we
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had sort of in our mind's eye was this idea of unstructured mingling, like you
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said. So there's a— we're at a conference, there's an hour set aside in the
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conference hall where we can get tea and coffees or a glass of wine or
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something and do our unstructured mingling there. That sort of formal networking.
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The networking that happens organically at, you know, at a dinner
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or something like that is a slightly different issue, but we were focused mostly
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on this unstructured mingling, which is still the default for most networking,
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where we sort of just dropkick everybody in a room together and say, have at
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it. That's what we had, and that's what we wanted to change.
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And it was very clear from the results, that's what most people didn't like.
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You know, the awkwardness of having to hold your saucer with your tea on it
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and manage the handshake, or people are standing in triangles, how can I
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break in? That sort of deal was what we were looking to change.
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Yeah, I'm fascinated to hear some of the practical tips because I'm
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already thinking in my head of, you know, operationally,
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stuff that I see day to day and whether or not
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that's manifested what I see sometimes and think, why have they
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not done that? I'm really curious to see if it's manifested itself in the report.
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So I'll give you a real-life example. I was running
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a conference for the biosciences industry
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last week in a very what I'd call
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stereotypical conference setup, a conference room laid out theater style and
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an adjacent room with some sponsors and exhibitors with tabletops, and in
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the center, big coffee station and where the lunch buffet served.
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No tables and nowhere for people to sit down, which meant
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that everybody was stood balancing tea and coffee and balancing their lunch buffet
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plates, kind of with elbows tucked in because it was quite a
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tight room. And I just thought, what a silly— you know, why not just put
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a space aside where people can actually sit and eat their lunch comfortably?
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That's not necessarily a neurodivergent thing. That's just a basic wellbeing and a
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basic operational practicality. Is stuff— is it stuff
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that's as simple as that that's addressed in the guide, Anita?
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Yeah, absolutely. It's, I think, one of my sort
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of favourite things that there was 2 that came out that I really liked.
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And these were ideas that came from respondents to the
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survey and within the group itself. So One
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was having a networking buddy, and it could be somebody
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within your committee, somebody within your organizing
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group that would make introductions.
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So if you're new to a conference, new to an event,
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they would actually help you make introductions and introduce you to a
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group. And it just having somebody do that and breaking
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that barrier down, I know certainly for myself would be really nice because that's standing
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on the periphery and thinking, Oh crikey, who do I talk
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to? Um, it's really, really hard. And then another
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one that came out was, um, when people
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register, so as well as putting their name and
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their organization, maybe having just 3 words of
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things that they're happy to talk about. And then it
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could be something really random, or it could be something to
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do with the event or the field of, um, field of
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science that they're looking at. And we tested this out at
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AbCo back in April,
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and I know that seemed to go down really well because it kind of gave
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an introduction. So whilst you might be looking at somebody's chest,
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at their name badge, you could actually see things that they were happy to talk
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about. So for me, you know, dogs, I love dogs, and if somebody,
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if I find a fellow dog lover, you know, we've already got
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a connection. We haven't got to break those barriers down.
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Um, and I think that's what we were looking at, is just how can
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we make it literally
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more accessible to everybody that's attending.
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And because that— and I think this is a key thing that anybody who's
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attended an event, they sort of said, you know, what, what's your biggest take-home?
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It's the connections that they make. They remember the people that they
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met really potentially more than the speakers,
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more than the program. It's who they met, who did they get chatting to,
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who do they want to continue that conversation with.
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And if your networking is not enabling that,
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then what is your event about? Yeah, absolutely. And that's— Andy,
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I'll bring you in on this just to ask. I was smiling
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then because I love the idea of having 3 words on a name badge.
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That allows you to kick off a conversation with somebody rather than the usual
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walking up, oh, hello, what do you do? Which company are you from?
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You know, it's boring as well, isn't it? You know,
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if you can get talking and find common ground with somebody unrelated
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to your work or the reason that you're there at that event, you can
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actually then open up a more meaningful conversation when you do get around
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to talking about the business side of things. Well, yeah, exactly. It's about making those
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connections seem less transactional, I think, is actually what makes them much more effective.
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And Sort of following on from what Anita was saying
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is none of this has to be really difficult or really involved or hard work.
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The way that the networking guide is structured, it's a silver, gold, and platinum
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level depending on your appetite for work and the size of your event and all
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the things like that. So silver, you know, if you
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want to just do the basics, turn the background music off so
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that people can actually hear one another when they're networking. I mean, that has no
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cost to it whatsoever. It actually results in less work because you don't have to
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choose choose a playlist or get the speakers out or anything like that.
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That's the sort of the level of silver level. And then, you know, like you
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said, you know, introducing a bit of structure can be something as simple
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as laying out some question cards on the tables or the area around with
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icebreaker-style questions. And they don't have to be cheesy. They could be something like,
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what's the worst film you've ever seen? What's one of the funniest
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things that's ever happened to you at work? Or something like that. Just anything that
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is just going to break that ice. And then you start having those organic conversations
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that then might lead to a sort of a transactional relationship down the road.
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But you've bypassed that sort of awkward standoff at the start,
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and everybody— it's a very level playing field. But when we talk about structured networking,
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that's what we're talking about. It's just those little sort of elements that
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facilitate the introduction. That's all it has to be. And then obviously,
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you know, as Anita was saying, having sort of a host or a facilitator who
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can make those introductions is really, really nice as well.
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The upside for that in terms of the host or facilitator
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The upside for that is, is good sort of PR for the organization,
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for the organizer as well, you know, that, that, that's a level of customer service
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that would be welcomed by any delegate or attendee at an event
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regardless of their, whether they're, you know, neurotypical or neurodivergent.
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If somebody came up to me at an event, if I was an attendee and
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said, look, can I help you make any introductions? I'm from the organizers, you know,
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is there anybody you'd like to meet? I think that'd just be a great level
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of service before we get into labeling it anything. Yeah,
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I think that's true. Sorry, Anita. No, I was just like,
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you know, we're, we're in the hospitality business. Is hospitality
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not about making people feel comfortable and being hospitable
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to one another? Exactly. You know, so yeah, exactly right.
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When it comes to— I think we forget that sometimes, don't we?
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You know, hospitality says it with hotels and restaurants, and in the events industry,
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I think we don't often consider ourselves to be working in hospitality,
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but we are. That's what we're doing. Yeah. And I was going to pick
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up on the other side of that is the hospitality business. It is a business.
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So ultimately what you're selling often with events is you're selling the
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networking and the people who are going to attend. So if you're not doing that
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effectively, you're selling a defective product and improving it and making
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it better. And this neuroinclusive networking, as we've said repeatedly,
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makes your networking more effective for everybody. So neurotypical
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people as well. So If you're selling networking but it's not really working,
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if it is just unstructured mingling, then you're not paying the same attention to it
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as you are to every other element of the events that you're running. And so
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if you just invest a little bit of effort into it, it will improve it,
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and then you will have a better product. So there's a commercial imperative to that
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as well. Yeah, go on,
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Anita. Sorry, I was sorry, I didn't mean to keep talking over you. I was
17:19.150 --> 17:22.650
gonna say, yeah, I agree and concur with, with what Andy said,
17:23.150 --> 17:25.550
you know. And with the actual guide, we're not saying that you've got to do
17:26.050 --> 17:29.887
every single single point. It's even just making one
17:30.387 --> 17:33.816
or two changes could make a massive difference. Yeah.
17:34.153 --> 17:37.714
So, you know, it's, it's not being afraid to
17:37.730 --> 17:41.163
make the change. And the changes that we've put in the guide, as Andy
17:41.435 --> 17:44.740
has said, you know, some of them are of no cost.
17:45.349 --> 17:47.691
But if you have got a bit of money, you know, this is where you
17:48.191 --> 17:51.974
go up to the, the gold and platinum levels of— and it's using
17:52.022 --> 17:56.772
technology because as technology is evolving, it's making life
17:57.272 --> 18:01.091
easier, certainly, I think, around networking and with hosting events. But it's,
18:01.813 --> 18:04.688
you know, you don't have to do— we're not suggesting that you've got to do
18:04.928 --> 18:08.124
everything in this list. Even if you can just bring one
18:08.702 --> 18:12.234
or two changes, we truly believe you'll see
18:12.734 --> 18:15.863
a difference with that, and you'll get good feedback. The technology,
18:16.569 --> 18:20.086
um, subject is an interesting one to bring in here because
18:21.226 --> 18:24.084
You mentioned budgets and working at different levels depending on,
18:25.240 --> 18:28.306
you know, at the top end, if somebody's got the budget to use something like
18:28.868 --> 18:32.401
an app, an event app that has matchmaking built into it where all
18:32.901 --> 18:36.687
the attendee details and pre-registrations are loaded in there, everyone's profile
18:36.736 --> 18:40.187
is created, there are some great matchmaking tools built
18:40.687 --> 18:44.683
into event apps now that use sophisticated algorithms and match stuff up. Great if
18:45.183 --> 18:47.958
you've got the budget, but at the opposite end of the spectrum The example that
18:48.458 --> 18:52.370
you gave earlier, Anita, where people might just give you 3 words that they're
18:52.870 --> 18:55.259
happy for, things that they're happy to talk about. If you had that on something
18:55.291 --> 18:59.591
as simple as a spreadsheet and you put that spreadsheet into everybody's
19:00.091 --> 19:03.618
accessible AI like Copilot or Gemini, one of those easily
19:04.118 --> 19:07.726
accessible platforms could also spit out matchmaking and look at that data
19:08.226 --> 19:12.267
and think, right, that person might want to talk to that person. So the
19:12.767 --> 19:16.448
tech now, because of how accessible AI is, even the most simple
19:16.464 --> 19:20.343
registration data can be interpreted and maybe used in
19:20.843 --> 19:24.045
a better way, even if you don't have access to these sophisticated platforms.
19:24.420 --> 19:27.363
That— I just wanted to make that, that point, that it doesn't have to be
19:27.863 --> 19:30.647
expensive to be able to utilize really good tech nowadays.
19:32.429 --> 19:35.749
Yeah, and I, I'd agree with that, you know. And isn't it— I know
19:35.765 --> 19:38.860
myself, when I've been on a conference app, if I could see somebody
19:38.876 --> 19:42.124
who's perhaps got common likes or dislikes to myself,
19:42.977 --> 19:46.430
I'm naturally going to gravitate towards them and I think, oh,
19:46.446 --> 19:49.979
I'd quite like to speak to them. Or if I see them,
19:50.686 --> 19:53.914
I know already before I've— even before I've attended, you know, got to the
19:54.414 --> 19:57.929
event, there's somebody who, who has a similar
19:58.429 --> 20:01.639
likes to me. And I know in this world of equity,
20:01.687 --> 20:04.450
diversity, and inclusion, you know, there is talk about, you know,
20:05.317 --> 20:08.770
don't always gravitate to people who think and look like
20:09.270 --> 20:12.590
you. Do go to people who will challenge your views and opinions.
20:12.638 --> 20:16.121
But I think when it comes to networking, and there's a lot of noise
20:16.217 --> 20:20.134
around finding your tribe, finding your community, if you
20:20.968 --> 20:24.868
at least, if you just have that icebreaker conversation, or you can
20:24.965 --> 20:28.191
get yourself through that door, um,
20:28.913 --> 20:32.364
and get yourself over the threshold and just start that conversation,
20:32.781 --> 20:36.239
it will give you the confidence to then approach other people,
20:36.304 --> 20:39.774
so who will perhaps challenge your views and opinions and make
20:40.274 --> 20:43.954
you a better person. And I think just going back a
20:44.454 --> 20:47.747
little bit, so as I said, we put together
20:47.812 --> 20:51.829
the neurodiversity at events checklist, and Andy,
20:51.846 --> 20:55.721
correct me if I'm wrong, but 1 in 5 people
20:57.538 --> 21:01.264
who identify as neurodiverse won't attend events Full
21:01.312 --> 21:03.765
stop. It's too overwhelming, it's too much.
21:04.294 --> 21:08.607
It's 20% of the population, so— and
21:09.107 --> 21:13.369
that's for those who identify as neurodiverse. For those who don't identify
21:13.898 --> 21:16.592
as neurodiverse, you know, that stat could be even higher.
21:17.169 --> 21:20.953
So if we can make just simple little changes, just think
21:21.178 --> 21:24.785
how many more people would be interested in your event and
21:24.865 --> 21:28.617
attending your event because they feel welcome, they're not feeling
21:28.665 --> 21:33.027
excluded, and Andy, sorry I keep coming back to you, but I just remember our
21:33.123 --> 21:36.523
early conversations a year ago. It was a brilliant
21:37.023 --> 21:40.307
phrase, and he said, instead of calling people out, let's call them in,
21:40.419 --> 21:44.396
let's welcome them in. And I keep using that mantra with everything
21:44.685 --> 21:47.700
that I do that's around EDI, not just neurodiversity,
21:47.732 --> 21:50.923
but anything to do with EDI. Let's welcome people
21:51.423 --> 21:54.627
in. Andy, could I ask, how, how important
21:55.127 --> 21:59.007
is it that organizers publicize any changes or developments,
21:59.263 --> 22:02.890
you know, however big or small or however subtle they may be,
22:03.275 --> 22:06.854
how important is it that organizers actually publicize that to their delegates?
22:07.544 --> 22:10.722
Well, I think it's very important for the reason Anita was just saying, is that
22:10.818 --> 22:14.590
a lot of neurodivergent people can choose to stay away from events
22:14.622 --> 22:18.201
if they think that they're not neuroinclusive. And also, you know,
22:18.217 --> 22:21.410
they might leave midway through because they don't like the idea of this networking that's
22:21.910 --> 22:25.700
coming up in the afternoon, or, you know, Participation doesn't just mean being
22:26.200 --> 22:28.840
there in the first place, it means staying there, actually asking questions, things like that.
22:29.340 --> 22:32.480
So I think it's really important. We always recommend when people do the Neurodiversity in
22:32.980 --> 22:35.960
Events Checklist and have their event accredited that they publicize it as much as possible
22:36.460 --> 22:40.960
to let people know this is neuroinclusive. And with the Neuroinclusive Networking Guide,
22:41.020 --> 22:43.410
we decided to make it a self-assessment scheme.
22:44.740 --> 22:47.920
So event planners, if they're planning a neuroinclusive networking, they use the guide,
22:48.420 --> 22:51.520
they work through it, they can themselves certify their
22:52.020 --> 22:55.500
networking as being neuroinclusive. And really, you should publicize it. Absolutely sing
22:56.000 --> 22:59.380
it from the rooftops, evangelize about it for the reasons that
22:59.880 --> 23:01.560
you're going to encourage more people to go. People are going to feel like it's
23:02.060 --> 23:05.360
a psychologically safer space, but also put pressure on everyone else
23:05.860 --> 23:09.540
who's not running a neuroinclusive networking. So because we want this eventually
23:10.040 --> 23:13.780
to become the default so that all, you know, these changes aren't hard to do.
23:14.280 --> 23:17.130
People can do them. So we increasingly want it to be the case that if
23:17.630 --> 23:20.830
someone's not running a neuroinclusive networking event, people say, well, why? Why aren't you doing
23:21.330 --> 23:24.410
that? It's easy enough to do. I've been to 5 already this month. Why aren't
23:24.910 --> 23:28.790
you doing it? So we always find with the events
23:29.290 --> 23:32.630
checklist, once people have done it once, it's really easy for them to repeat it
23:33.130 --> 23:36.410
and do it again. And people don't go back to doing them the non-neuroinclusive way.
23:36.550 --> 23:38.690
So we want that to be the case here. So yeah, sing it from the
23:39.190 --> 23:42.062
rooftops if you do run a neuroinclusive networking event. Networking. It's really important.
23:43.235 --> 23:46.800
I'm curious to ask, I would usually ask when we've got somebody on
23:47.300 --> 23:50.253
the podcast talking about, you know, a guide or some documentation that's been released,
23:50.285 --> 23:53.256
you know, how long was the consultation process? How long was the process to bring
23:53.304 --> 23:56.789
it to publication? I'm more curious to ask today about what
23:57.126 --> 24:00.643
the approvals process was like and how many people
24:01.382 --> 24:04.835
looked at this when you were kind of ready to publish it and
24:04.915 --> 24:08.273
how many people actually said, yes, this is great, or yes, this is
24:08.531 --> 24:12.234
almost great, but I think you need to tweak this. I'm curious, how many people
24:12.734 --> 24:16.565
were involved in the actual approval side of it to say, I'm neurodiverse, and actually,
24:16.774 --> 24:18.619
if all these things are implemented, that would be great?
24:21.838 --> 24:25.839
So we have some people within our group who identify—
24:26.339 --> 24:30.546
so within the APCO task force— who identify as neurodivergent.
24:30.595 --> 24:34.114
So we ran it past them. As I said, I work
24:34.614 --> 24:37.804
in Cambridge and I'm a member of the
24:38.205 --> 24:41.911
University of Cambridge staff, so I talked with a lot
24:42.411 --> 24:46.130
of my colleagues here at Cambridge and ran the guide through
24:46.146 --> 24:49.419
them and sort of said this is tentative. But I think again with
24:49.919 --> 24:52.211
the— I think this is something we kind of want to say about the guide—
24:52.307 --> 24:56.158
it is a living document. So for people
24:56.658 --> 25:00.072
out there in the audience land, if you're using it, if there are things
25:00.409 --> 25:04.052
that work or even don't work, or you've got ideas on how we can improve
25:04.552 --> 25:07.695
it, we'd love to know, we'd love to hear, because we want this to evolve
25:07.808 --> 25:11.820
as events evolve, as time goes on, so it remains a useful
25:12.320 --> 25:15.832
document. And that was one of the reasons why we came up with
25:16.332 --> 25:19.812
the guide. So when we put out the neurodiversity events checklist,
25:20.325 --> 25:23.551
we said we don't want this to be a static document, we want
25:23.599 --> 25:27.034
this to evolve, we want to keep the momentum going, we still want—
25:27.451 --> 25:31.207
we want to be useful, and helpful to event professionals
25:31.304 --> 25:34.740
and to venues as well, so that we're all coming
25:34.917 --> 25:38.080
together. And I think we'd kind of noticed as well over
25:38.580 --> 25:41.419
the year that people were working in silos, or, you know,
25:41.757 --> 25:45.450
people were bringing in different things. There was no place
25:45.950 --> 25:48.886
where everything was all coming together, and that was the whole purpose that we came
25:49.386 --> 25:52.804
together. And we have just built this, um, hopefully this
25:52.916 --> 25:56.449
power chain that will keep the things moving and make things better
25:56.949 --> 26:00.224
for everybody who's attending events. What's the process,
26:00.288 --> 26:03.388
Andy, of sort of future revisions to this now?
26:03.661 --> 26:06.938
You know, now that it is out there as a document for people to utilise
26:07.035 --> 26:10.568
and use within their own event operations, you know, how easy is it for
26:11.068 --> 26:15.130
people to get in touch in order to offer any suggestions? And is
26:15.162 --> 26:18.568
there a sort of— is there a plan in place and a timeline in place
26:18.728 --> 26:22.278
for when you will revise and look to produce further revisions of
26:22.294 --> 26:25.500
the document? Yeah. So what we did with
26:26.000 --> 26:29.950
the events checklist, Neurodiversity in Events checklist, is we were getting feedback consistently.
26:30.040 --> 26:33.960
And when it was its year anniversary, we launched 2.0.
26:34.460 --> 26:36.980
So what we did that based on the feedback we had, we sort of re-met
26:37.480 --> 26:40.720
as a group, spoke to a bunch of different people and made, to be honest,
26:41.220 --> 26:45.000
quite small tweaks, but I think quite important tweaks. And as Anita said,
26:45.800 --> 26:49.120
this really, you know, this isn't an abstract document. It only works if people actually
26:49.620 --> 26:53.100
try it and say, well, this This is what it's like on the ground.
26:53.220 --> 26:56.280
And that's what we did with the neurodiversity events checklist. We made changes based on
26:56.780 --> 26:59.020
people said, well, this thing's in the guide, but that's not practical. That's not really
26:59.520 --> 27:02.880
how events work. So we tweaked it to make it more practical. So I think
27:03.380 --> 27:06.820
the networking guide's only been out for about a month. It's only
27:07.320 --> 27:10.840
a month old. So when we get up to the year anniversary, we'll look at
27:11.340 --> 27:15.340
making an updated version. But yeah, again, it's really important that it is organic for
27:15.840 --> 27:19.700
all the reasons Anita mentioned. Technology changes, people change, our understanding of neurodiversity changes.
27:19.993 --> 27:23.345
Best practice changes, law changes. So there's a million different factors
27:23.441 --> 27:26.889
that, that mean this has to be organic. It has to be a living document.
27:28.159 --> 27:31.815
And it brings me, I guess, to the most obvious question of all, but a
27:32.203 --> 27:35.859
neat way to start rounding off today's episode is how do people get
27:36.359 --> 27:36.748
it? Where do they need to go?
27:39.440 --> 27:43.101
Andy, over to you. It's on the Welcome Brain website. So I think
27:43.601 --> 27:45.887
the link is floating below my head. There we go. Yes.
27:47.394 --> 27:49.111
On the screen now, for those of you watching today,
27:56.390 --> 28:00.541
welcomebrain.com/neuroinclusive-networking-guide. I'll do that one more
28:00.687 --> 28:05.065
welcomebrain.com/neuroinclusive-networking-guide.
28:05.129 --> 28:08.246
That's on the screen now for people watching. We'll also put a link to that
28:08.295 --> 28:11.492
in the description of today's podcast. I'll keep it on the screen for
28:11.992 --> 28:15.223
a few more seconds so that people can note it down. It is actually relatively
28:15.723 --> 28:18.865
simple. But a few characters in there. So hopefully people have got it.
28:18.946 --> 28:22.472
But yes, it will be in the description for today's podcast. So if you're listening
28:22.505 --> 28:26.128
to this, if you're watching this, just check out the description that's either below or
28:26.468 --> 28:30.107
on the screen where you get your audio podcasts from and you'll see a link
28:30.607 --> 28:34.312
to that. I have got my copy just before
28:34.812 --> 28:36.706
we literally hit record on today's episode.
28:37.774 --> 28:40.897
My copy pinged through, so I'll be having a good read through that.
28:41.026 --> 28:44.950
And I said it's stuff that I've encountered in my day-to-day you know,
28:45.063 --> 28:48.958
working life, working as a freelancer in events, at conferences,
28:49.070 --> 28:53.302
at what I guess you would call a lot of very sort of stereotypical business
28:53.318 --> 28:56.572
conferences around the country. I've seen examples of this on
28:56.605 --> 28:59.859
many, many occasions where I've thought, hold on, it's not just about
29:00.195 --> 29:03.594
people of a neurodivergent background and making
29:03.642 --> 29:06.207
them accessible. A lot of these things, and I think we said that at the
29:06.707 --> 29:10.006
very start, Anita, a lot of the changes that you can make that on
29:10.054 --> 29:13.100
the face of it are including or being more inclusive to people
29:13.116 --> 29:16.851
with neurodivergent aspects actually
29:16.963 --> 29:20.426
will have an impact, a positive impact on your entire
29:20.730 --> 29:24.145
delegate or your attendee list because of those
29:24.177 --> 29:26.886
subtle changes. And it'd be interesting. Yeah,
29:26.966 --> 29:30.332
I'm looking forward to having a good read through it and seeing what
29:30.348 --> 29:33.137
I can implement. And guys, please do stay in touch about this, you know,
29:33.153 --> 29:37.177
further revisions. We'd love to see how this is being accepted
29:37.677 --> 29:41.104
and how the rollout is going across the industry. You know, as the time comes
29:41.153 --> 29:45.194
when there is feedback, when there is you know, some reporting, some stats and data,
29:45.258 --> 29:49.029
anything like that that you want to feed back to the industry, it'd be great
29:49.529 --> 29:52.687
to have you on, on a future episode. Thank you. That'd be great. James,
29:52.719 --> 29:55.302
let us know your thoughts as well when you've been through it. If you run
29:55.802 --> 29:59.040
it at any of your events, tell us how it worked, what you've put in
29:59.136 --> 30:02.714
place and how it worked for you, because obviously your feedback, we can bring
30:02.746 --> 30:06.164
that back into the guide again. Absolutely, we'd be delighted to. I'm really
30:06.196 --> 30:09.882
pleased today that my guests have been Anita McDonald Marketing Manager at Meet Cambridge,
30:09.898 --> 30:13.260
and Andy Williamson, Founder at Welcome Brain Consulting,
30:13.681 --> 30:17.221
talking today about the new Neuro-Inclusive Networking Guide
30:17.496 --> 30:20.300
that launched at the Meetings Show just a few weeks ago.
30:20.703 --> 30:24.101
As we've said, available now to anybody that works
30:24.601 --> 30:27.558
in the events industry. And just one more time, really important before we round off
30:28.058 --> 30:29.083
today, welcomebrain.com/neuro-inclusive-networking-guide.
30:34.437 --> 30:37.823
-guide is the link that you need to go to in order to download your
30:38.323 --> 30:41.546
free copy of this guide. Thanks very much to both my guests today.
30:41.611 --> 30:44.724
And just a couple of bits for Event Industry News before we wrap up today's
30:45.224 --> 30:48.864
episode. If you're watching today's episode on the website, thank you very much for doing
30:48.960 --> 30:52.651
so. Please do make sure that you're checking out the latest news features, special supplements
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Thanks very much again to my guests today, and we will see everybody on the
31:34.970 --> 31:36.563
next edition of the Event Industry News Podcast.