Session Host Guide
Congratulations on taking the first steps toward hosting a session at Mozilla Festival. This guide is your ultimate go-to resource for everything you need to know to lead a session.
Designing a Successful Session
A good place to start your session design is to consider the purpose of why you are running this session: What are you inviting people into?*
Once the purpose is clear to you, define the desired result or goal you would like to reach in the session: What new insight / consideration do you want people to walk away with? What insights do you want to gain from participants? How would you like folks to feel at the end of the session?
You can use your session’s purpose and goal as reference points in the design of your session, checking in time and again: Does this activity, question or input align with my session purpose? Does it serve my intended goal(s)?
From these two points, you delve into the structure of the session. Typically, an interactive session will have three parts:
Divergence → Opening
In the divergent phase we open up the themes of the subject matter, as well as our minds and hearts to create motivation and connection. We frame and create clarity on context, purpose, desired outcome. We set a tone of openness and intention: what unique possibilities are available because we are coming together?
Emergence → Sorting, working, letting things develop and deepen
The emergent phase is where the intensive work takes place: Discovery, sharing knowledge, experience and evidence. Ideating, pondering, discussing, exploring issues, having reflective dialogues, negotiations, etc. Here the session host holds the gentle balance between guiding the group and responding to what is emerging.
Convergence → Closing
The convergent phase is about closing down. Here we sum and wrap up, integrate, finalize, make arrangements for the next steps. And as we all know, one ending is just a new beginning - what new journey or call to action would you like to invite participants on after the session is over? Plant the seed.
Different activities can serve each of these phases, taking into consideration your session purpose and goal. Here are some facilitation resources, which provide a variety of activities / formats that you could use in your session:
- A Toolkit for Gathering
- Creating Participatory Events section of the MozFest Book
- Institute of Democracy and Higher Education’s Facilitator Workshop Guide for Political Discussions
- International Association of Facilitators Methods Database
- Liberating Structures Menu
- Seeds for Change Facilitation Tools for Meetings and Workshops
- SessionLab Library of Facilitation Techniques
- The Facilitator’s Toolkit by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
- Transgender Europe’s (TGEU) Facilitator’s Toolkit
- The Art of Gathering
If you feel clear and confident about the purpose of your session you may want to consider using it in the divergent phase of your session. It can be grounding and empowering for participants to know why you are hosting this session by making the purpose of your session explicit (even and especially when it relates to your personal reasons for being passionate about the topic).
After your session
It isn’t over till it’s over! When your session has finished, you can start by taking a deep breath in and out, and taking a moment to celebrate yourself for doing this. After that, we strongly recommend that you take some time to reflect on the session - maybe take yourself out for some fresh air, sit down with a hot drink and your favorite notebook, or grab your phone and open up a new note to yourself. Reflect:
- What was my favorite part of the session and why?
- What would I change, adapt or do differently next time?
- What have I learnt?
- What am I grateful for now, in this moment? (list as many things as you can think of!)
After Mozilla Festival is over, join us for our group debrief where we will also share more information about how you can stay connected with the community in the future.