FROM THE STAGE: HOW TO OPEN A CONFERENCE SO PEOPLE CONNECT. MICHELLE SPEHR ON THE CRAFT OF MAKING A ROOM TALK

How to open a conference so people connect: ask one meaningful question, give people 60 to 90 seconds to reflect and write an answer, put them in groups of three with strangers, and have the listeners acknowledge each speaker before the next one goes. Michelle Spehr ran that at CultureCon 2026.

Key takeaways

• Open with one question. CultureCon 2026 opened by asking the room why it was important to be there.

• Give people 60 to 90 seconds to reflect.

• Use groups of three, ideally with people you don't know well.

• Add the acknowledgment step. After someone shares, the listeners say something back.

• Let people pass. “You can simply say pass.”

• Close the loop before people leave. Ask out loud what the experience made possible.

Attendees had told us that alongside the speakers and the presentations, what they wanted was interaction, connection, and conversation. So we partnered with Michelle Spehr, a longtime contributor and friend of this community, to design the session that opened the conference, a lunchtime experience in the middle of it, and the one that closed it.

She started with a show of hands.

“How many of you had to move at least one thing in your life so that you could be here today?”

Hands went up across the room.

“This may be different than what you're used to at most conferences. We're going to actually take time to create space and to slow down.”

Michelle Spehr is a master facilitator who designs and leads learning experiences that leave people energized, inspired, seen, and valued. Her guiding belief is that her purpose is to influence positive change by connecting people, connecting ideas, and connecting people with ideas. She draws on the science of experiential learning and what she calls conversational choreography, helping attendees step into a conference as confident contributors with a clear sense of purpose.

The question, on three levels

“Why is it important that you're here at CultureCon 2026?”

She asked the room to answer it on three levels. Why is it important for you? Why is it important for others, your team or the people you serve? And why is it important for the world?

Then she explained why:

“The science of how we learn tells us that when we take time to pause and reflect, even if it's for 60 to 90 seconds, it'll greatly increase the value you're going to get from the conference.”

She asked everyone to take out something to write with and write on, and hold it up so she could see it. She invited the room to take a deep breath, then added, “That was mostly for me, but I appreciate you going along.” Music played for about a minute while people wrote.

Groups of three

Then: form groups of three, preferably with people you don't know or don't know well. If you're sitting with people you work with, stand up and connect with people at another table. Virtual attendees went into breakout rooms of three or four.

Whoever had the head or the heart to go first went first, for about a minute each.

“This isn't your life TED talk. All right? Some of you need to hear this.”

After the first person shared, the other two acknowledged the person who just spoke.

“Something so the person just feels seen and heard.”

The whole round took about six minutes, with a timer up on the screen.

“Everyone here has freedom of choice. So, if for any reason you don't want to share, you can simply say pass.”

Then she asked everyone to honor that, meeting people where they are.

Her last check before releasing them:

“How many of you are these instructions clear enough that you have a pretty good idea what to do? Okay, good news is that's enough of you. It usually works itself out.”

Then: “The most important thing before I send you off is to enjoy your conversations.”

What the room said back

When she brought everyone back, she asked what people wanted to notice or appreciate about the conversation they had just had.

One group found they were all there for intentional connection. Another wanted tools they could take back to their own teams. A third had a student and someone from accounting in the same trio, and ended up talking about belonging at work and about having values that represent the people in the organization.

Then Michelle gave the room a question to keep using:

“As you are meeting people over the next day and two, you can simply ask them, why is it important that you're here at CultureCon 2026?”

Closing with heart: what did this make possible?

On the last day, she closed the conference with the same structure and a different question.

“What did this conference experience make possible for you?”

One attendee who works in construction said it gave her the confidence to go back and have some difficult conversations. Her site leadership and foremen, she said, don't tend to lead with empathy, and her work is about training, education, and getting the next generation into solar and renewable energy. She pointed back to Claude Silver's opening keynote and the song in your head: if you're making that song negative for someone, it's not going to help them progress in their career.

A speaker who had also attended talked about needing community to do culture work: people to commiserate with, people to learn from.

Someone else said she could not believe she had raised her hand, then said:

“When you go back into your workplace, it can be very singular lonely work. And so I think it's very important to show up in a place like this and be reminded like, oh no, wait, there's like lots of other humans who actually believe that this is important work.”

Another attendee said:

“While most people out there are focused on optimizing the workforce, there are a lot of people out here who are focused on humanizing the workforce.”

The last one came from someone new to her role in a school district, who said the conference gave her validation, and the confidence and fire to keep fighting for what she knows her culture can look like.

Trusting the process

Michelle thanked the room, in person and online, for what they had created together:

“When we bring people together like this, leaning in and being open and engaging, that's what makes experiences like this meaningful. I want to thank you personally for trusting the process. And I want to thank you for how you showed up for yourselves and for each other.”

Frequently asked questions

Who is Michelle Spehr?

Michelle Spehr is a master facilitator who designs and leads learning experiences built around connection. Her stated purpose is to influence positive change by connecting people, connecting ideas, and connecting people with ideas. She works from the science of experiential learning and the art of conversational choreography, and she facilitated the opening, lunchtime, and closing connection experiences at CultureCon 2026.

How do you open a conference or a large meeting so people actually connect?

The pattern Michelle used: ask one meaningful question, give people 60 to 90 seconds to reflect and write an answer, put them in groups of three with people they don't know, give each person about a minute to share, have the listeners acknowledge each speaker before the next one goes, offer an explicit option to pass, run a visible timer, then bring a handful of voices back to the full room.

Does taking time to pause and reflect really improve what people get out of an event?

Michelle says the science of how we learn shows that pausing to reflect, even for 60 to 90 seconds, greatly increases the value people get from a conference.

What question should you ask at the end of a conference?

Michelle closed CultureCon 2026 with this one: “What did this conference experience make possible for you?”

CultureCon is becoming WorkPossible

In 2027, our tenth year, CultureCon becomes WorkPossible. We've grown out of being just a conference and we needed a name that could keep growing with our expanded services. But despite the name change, culture is still the heartbeat of our organization. That's never going to change.

WorkPossible is the belief that work can be a force for good, and that when people come together with curiosity and purpose, incredible things become possible.

Early bird tickets for WorkPossible 2027 in Madison are available now. Get yours here

Work, made possible by the people who do it.

This recap was written with the help of AI from Michelle Spehr's facilitated sessions at CultureCon 2026, then reviewed by our team.