Sharing the Wealth

One of the best things to come out of Latornell is the sharing of information. In our conference surveys, delegates tell us that when they're back at the office, they share new tools, techniques and strategies for natural resources management that they heard about at the conference, and often incorporate changes based on this new information.

But more than just the learning from the sessions, Latornell offers the opportunity to start new collaborations. When you consider that our audience is about 40% Conservation Authority staff, 10% students, 13% consulting, 13% Province and 9% NGOs, Latornell provides a forum for practitioners, students, academics, government, and non-government organizations across Ontario to, network. How many LinkedIn requests do you get after the conference?

However, sharing information is easier said than done, when we return to our work and are not the originators of the information. At CVC we debated ways and means of sharing, including running a mini-Latornell with the CVC presentations given at the conference. Given that CVC often has many presentations in the program we could be looking at a half day or full day of presentations which is a bit too much additional time.

One of our staff developed a conference report-back form to document key messages and links to resources. It is valuable but lacks the interactive component and relies on the audience making time to read it.

The most successful method we have found is our “CVC Presents” – a series of lunchtime seminars where Latornell (and other) presentations are given again to a varied audience. Here we have the opportunity to hear the whole presentation, ask questions and staff can attend during their lunch hour and then get back to work. Information overload does not occur and the cost remains reasonable.

How do you share? Tell us what works for you.

This blog post contributed by Deb Martin-Downs, CAO Credit Valley Conservation, Latornell Steering Committee Member