Closer Apart: How to Design and Facilitate Brilliant Workshops Online

I highly recommend this book for anyone else who feels like 95% of the last year has been spent on Zoom, Meet or Teams... John Monks and Lizzie Shupak have written the definitive guide to running online workshops. The vast majority of my consulting work is carried out remotely: even with some existing experience, the book was full of new ideas and inspiration. It's also beautifully designed and superbly practical, with plenty of spaces for personal reflection and notes, and the best integration of bonus online content via QR codes that I've seen in any book (aside: after years of hype, it turns out that a year of reporting lateral flow results has really habituated me to QRs...). As we all move from a world where travel and in-person meetings were constrained by the pandemic, to one where they may be restricted for ecological or lifestyle reasons, I can't think of a better investment than this book.

If you are regularly organising online workshops that require interaction and outputs from participants (i.e. more than just talking through a PowerPoint) then this book is well worth investing your time and money in. The book is:- Cleanly organised and structured, with easy to access text and images.- Written by people who clearly know their stuff on this topic- Well supported with additional resources through the use of QR scan codes throughout the book which takes you the web site associated with the book (which holds templates and other resources).I have given the book 5/5 stars; however, I would adjust this score a little bit depending on who you are and your needs from this sort of book.If you are a manager or team member who is working remotely, with limited experience of facilitation or this type of online activity (which COVID has thrust on many people , forcing them into this category), this is a 5/5 book. It covers facilitation skills along with the tech needed, and walks people through the process on online workshops very well. These readers will get a huge amount from this book.If you are someone who has a reasonable amount of facilitation skill and experience already but have not run many events online, again you will get a lot of value from this book and is a 5/5 book. It gives a lot of practical hints and tips, and the QR code / web site resources will help you a lot.If you are an experienced facilitator, who is reasonably tech savvy and reasonably comfortable with online working (which is the category I fall into), the value lessens a bit and goes to 4/5 stars. I purchased the book to ensure I was best practice and not missing key tricks on how I run online workshops, plus I was seeking out new ideas or approaches to enhance my online sessions. The web site support materials help in this regard and it is that area where I will probably gain the most value from. In the book itself, I would have liked to have seen more suggestions / ideas explored in the text (such as a whole chapter on online ice breakers or engagement activities) rather the brief references to the topics supported by the QR code to the web site. Same for dealing with disruptive people and some of the other topics - a bit more depth and greater range of examples would have been ideal. But I know a balance has to be struck between detail and accessibility, so is impossible to get this right for everyone. If coming at the book from my angle of needs, be prepared to get the most value from the book by maximizing use of the support materials accessed online.Overall, I love this book and have already used one of the planning templates. It is a book that is very relevant to today, where many people are grappling with how to maximize the value of delivering remote / hybrid events. It will help people achieve this and I applaud the authors for getting a book on this topic out there in such an accessible and clean format.

A very well written, lucid book explaining how to run workshops. The layout is also very good as it enables the reader to understand what is involved in convenient, bite-sized chunks; this encourages the reader to stop and think.

I was starting to dread getting people together online - my experience was that something always goes wrong with the technology so I have a screen full of people waiting for me to sort it out, and I never know how people are really feeling and thinking during a meeting or workshop. Getting them to actually collaborate on something can be a nightmare if they don't know each other well. This book has loads of tips you can use straight away, like exercises to help people connect at the start and what the authors call 'energisers' to keep people engaged all the way through. Too many tips for managing technology to mention here, but suffice to say I no longer dread something going wrong since using this book in action - I know what to do to prepare so it's less likely, and I know what to do if things do go wrong, so it's easier to not stress and stay calm! I'd absolutely recommend it if you're a facilitator or if you're gathering people together online to get anything done.

Fantastic book, well structured with a great balance between the needs of the business and people who run it, while getting to grips with the IT.Useful Top tips are scattered throughout, alongside practical exercises which I will definitely try out when next running a risk or brainstorming workshop. Highly recommended.Amanda (Programme Manager)

Workshops are a powerful way of creating new things, ideas and ways of working, but having never been trained how to run them, I can't say all of mine have been a huge success. This book has given me countless frameworks and ideas on how to design and create much better ones and it will do the same for you.The tone of this book is much lighter than any training book I have ever read and a huge amount of thought has been put into the design of the book, the flow of your learning experience and how to link to the extensive set of tools and other content that come with the book.I can't recommend this book enough, to anyone who has to design and run Workshops for clients or within their own organisation.

If you are looking for a "go to" book on how to facilitate great workshops this is the one! John and Lizzie have covered all the bases from how to prepare, think about tech and manage the participants' energy within the session. It is also written in a very relaxed and easy to read way, which I loved too.

This book is everything you need to know about running online workshops. Talk about a book for our times!Online or offline, I'm one of countless people who, despite running workshops on a regular basis, had my approach completely reinvented by learnings from Curve.So hats off to Lizzie and John for pulling this super practical, zeitgeist-y delight together. It will change a shed load of businesses.