Running a successful workshop or a seminar

I spend a substantial amount of my working life hours teaching, giving lectures, speaking at panels, presenting papers at academic conferences. Lately, I’ve been giving more seminars and workshops, and I wanted to reflect on what works best for different audiences, and to establish the difference between a seminar and a workshop. They have different objectives.

For example, recently, I gave a workshop to students of the PR program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. This was part of the Computer Skills III course, superbly taught by Carla J. Wolf. I was invited by Erin Raimondo, one of the students in the program (she won the gift certificate I donated to Twestival Vancouver). I originally had said that the 3 hour talk would be a seminar (e.g. lecture style) but I ended up doing a hands-on approach where I intermingled the theory behind social networking sites and the practice.

So how do I differentiate a workshop from a seminar? I think two characteristics make them distinct. Workshops tend to be more hands-on, interactive whereas seminars tend to be more lecture-style. Also, workshops tend to be of longer duration (maybe 3 to 6 hours, maybe a full day) whereas seminars tend to be shorter (I have given a 3 hour seminar non-stop and I can assure you, it’s not all that fun).

photo credit: stevendepolo

Being an academic, I’m very used to giving seminars. I lecture for 45 minutes to 2 hours and then I have a question-answer period. In the past decade, I have melded my previous experience consulting with clients (pre-PhD and post-undergrad and MBA) and my teaching into an interactive seminar style. I still can give seminars and I’m quite used to the “I speak, you listen” model.

I was part of a great panel recently at the Independent Power Producers Conference of British Columbia, and I spoke for 7 minutes, seminar style – I did the same with the seminar on social media for small businesses that I presented at the Vancouver Small Business Entrepreneur Meetup. I basically gave a full-on seminar (45 minutes). Those opportunities and venues don’t lend themselves to running actual workshops.

Lately, I’ve discovered that I enjoy more a hands-on, interactive, workshop style. I really enjoy working together with participants in the workshop and ensuring that they grasp the concepts I am presenting. I wouldn’t scrap the opportunity to give a seminar, but I am thinking that, as I do more teaching and seminars in the academic realm, I’ll be doing more workshops in my client and consulting work.

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