Our retreat workshop service draws on components of our website redesign process-- specifically, the collaborative, consensus-building design workshop. Using this human-centered approach, we highlight both personal experience and team values. We believe that identifying values and beliefs plays a huge role in creating buy-in and support of an organizational mission and vision.
Earlier this summer, LibraryLink NJ asked us to investigate and share best practices in makerspaces in libraries across the state of NJ. We researched what libraries were doing differently in their spaces, how they were engaging the maker community, and what they were seeking to improve. We then gathered the leaders of the makerspaces across the state together at a workshop to generate ideas on how the makerspaces could collaborate. One of the greatest outcomes of the project was another engagement with LibraryLink NJ: to plan and facilitate their board retreat. There, we provided them an opportunity to establish personal relationships and set a foundation for the mostly online interactions in the upcoming year.