Hailed as the World’s Leading Business Strategist, award-winning strategic consultant and professional speaker Scott Steinberg is among today’s best-known trends experts and futurists, and the bestselling author of “Steinberg’s Guide to Creating Competitive Advantage,” “Think Like a Futurist: The Next Normal; Make Change Work for You;” and “Fast >> Forward: How to Turbo-Charge Business, Sales, and Career Growth.” The creator of What’s the Future of…?, a new series of training games for play at meetings and events, and the President and CEO of BIZDEV: The International Association for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships™, his website is FuturistsSpeakers.com.

If there’s one thing that we’ve learned in 20 years of giving keynote speeches and running training workshops and breakout sessions at conferences and conventions, it’s to always keep things dynamic, fun and engaging.

Today’s attendees are constantly on the lookout for more interactive learning experiences and networking opportunities, after all, just as meeting and event planners are continually seeking more attention-grabbing and impactful programming formats. That said, as we explain in the new book “Steinberg’s Guide to Creating Competitive Advantage” (and remind in recent training games like What’s the Future of Finance/Insurance?), designing more enjoyable and entertaining content doesn’t have to be difficult.

In fact, much of the magic is simply in how you package and format program sessions. Having hosted training seminars and workshops for hundreds of brands as futurist keynote speakers, here are 10 simple and effective learning setups we’ve found that can help you better capture and retain audiences’ attention.

Multi-Format Learning Labs: Transform traditional breakout sessions into dynamic learning laboratories where participants rotate through different engagement formats within the same time block. Start with a brief expert presentation (15 minutes), then move to small group problem-solving (20 minutes), followed by cross-group solution sharing (15 minutes), and conclude with individual action planning (10 minutes). For added impact, include roaming experts who move between groups to provide guidance and insights.

Industry Challenge Hackathons: Organize participants into cross-functional teams to solve real industry challenges provided by sponsoring companies or drawn from participant submissions. Teams work through structured innovation processes including problem definition, ideation, rapid prototyping and pitch preparation. As a twist, you might also introduce industry experts as mentors who rotate between teams offering guidance. Culminate in a solution showcase where teams present their innovations to judges and peers.

Experiential Knowledge Exchanges: Design immersive learning experiences that combine physical and digital elements to engage multiple senses and create memorable learning moments. For example, you might create innovation stations where participants can physically interact with new technologies while simultaneously engaging with expert explanations and peer discussions. It helps to feature hands-on demonstrations, simulation exercises and real-time problem-solving challenges. Structure the experience with clear learning objectives and reflection points and incorporate gamification elements to encourage full participation and knowledge retention.

Expert-Led Round Tables: You can reimagine traditional roundtable discussions by adding dynamic elements and structured interaction patterns. It helps to start each round with an expert sharing a provocative insight or challenge (5 minutes), followed by structured table discussion – then rotate experts between tables every 20 minutes, ensuring that participants gain multiple perspectives. You’ll want to end each round with tables creating visual summaries of key insights to share with the larger group.

Interactive Case Study Workshops: Meeting planners can transform traditional case study presentations into immersive problem-solving experiences by presenting real business scenarios to tackle. Participants effectively work in teams to analyze information, make decisions and deal with unexpected developments that you can introduce every 5-10 minutes. We recommended adding role-playing elements where participants must navigate stakeholder interactions or surprise twists of fate.

Collaborative Problem-Solving Sessions: Structure intensive working sessions where participants collaborate to solve specific business challenges. Begin with clear problem definition and expected outcomes. Use design-thinking methodologies to guide teams through problem exploration, solution ideation and implementation planning. Include industry experts who can provide real-time feedback and guidance. Create digital repositories for solutions and frameworks that participants can access after the event.

Executive Brain Trust Circles: Create exclusive small-group sessions where senior executives can engage in deep, confidential discussions about strategic challenges. Structure these as 90-minute sessions with no more than eight participants, led by an expert facilitator. Begin with each executive sharing their most pressing challenge (3 minutes each), followed by structured peer consultation. Finish sessions with concrete action commitments and establish mechanisms for ongoing peer support between events.

Reverse Mentoring Exchanges: Facilitate structured interactions where junior professionals share insights with senior leaders about emerging trends, technologies or market perspectives. Create clear frameworks for these exchanges to ensure productive dialogue – and offer preparation guides for both mentors and mentees. Note that it’s important to structure sessions with specific learning objectives and discussion prompts, and to end with mutual commitment setting and follow-up planning.

Develop Expert Office Hours: Offer flexible consultation opportunities where participants can engage with subject matter experts in both scheduled and impromptu sessions. Set up solutions as 20-minute consultations with clear preparation guidelines. Include both in-person and virtual access options. Create follow-up mechanisms for extended consultation if needed. End each session with concrete action steps and resource recommendations.

Action Learning Projects: Promote structured programs where participants work on real organizational challenges over the course of the event. Begin with clear project scoping and team formation. Include regular check-ins with expert coaches and peer review sessions. Structure milestone presentations to gather feedback from other participants. Create digital collaboration platforms for team coordination… then finish up with formal project presentations and implementation planning.

Long story short: Rather than simply have a speaker talk at audiences, you’re better served by finding ways to get audiences interacting with each other more frequently… and engaging in two-way conversation with presenters. Building more opportunities for interaction and networking into training exercises isn’t just a great way to break the ice and encourage more participation. It’s also a helpful way to quickly boost learning and engagement – and equip attendees with practical tools that can help them in their job roles for years to come. I&FMM