Bringing Innovation Home:
Orangeworks at the Catalyst Global Operations Conference in Vienna
Last week, Oddie (our legendary MC and lead facilitator) and Fiona (our brilliant Events Director) jetted off to Vienna to attend the annual Catalyst Global Operations Conference – a four-day gathering of our Catalyst Network partners from around the globe. With a packed agenda of brainstorming, networking, learning and exploring the future of team building, the trip proved to be equal parts insightful and inspiring.
Day 1: Shifting Perspectives
Sunday kicked off with introductions and a chance to network with fellow Catalyst partners. Oddie and Fiona got to enjoy the session from the delegates side this time – taking part in the icebreakers, energisers and challenges rather than running them. Experiencing the session as a participant offered a refreshing perspective on what our clients value most in a well-run event and gave them plenty of ideas to bring back and build on at home.
Day 2: Innovation in Action
Monday was all about innovation and new experiences. The highlight? Exploring how AI might be integrated into our offerings. We got hands-on with activities like City Build and Quickfire and also tossed around ideas for some new experiences.
Oddie & Fiona presented an AI assisted version of our Global Innovation Game to the partners. If you’re not familiar with Global Innovation Game, it’s a collaborative activity where teams work together to generate new business ideas and pitch them to a panel of judges – think Dragons Den! It encourages engagement, entrepreneurial thinking and the development of persuasive communication skills.
For the purpose of this workshop and to add the AI element, teams used AI tools like ChatGPT and Canva’s AI video generator to help them develop a marketing or business strategy for their new idea. It became clear that AI doesn’t replace creativity; rather, it helps shape and structure it. Prompting quality is everything, and it was exciting to see how different teams chose to present their ideas – some live, some via AI-generated video.
A big topic of discussion also was whether AI can genuinely support or enhance activity delivery. The consensus? While AI might not replace the human touch (nor should it), it has potential to streamline processes and offer new ways to engage participants. Ultimately, it may be up to the customer to decide how much of a role they want AI to play in their event.
Day 3: Elevating Facilitation
Tuesday focused on the art of event facilitation with the Facilitation Academy. Catalyst partners dove into the “Me, We, Us” framework – something Oddie will be expanding on in an upcoming article, so stay tuned!
Conversations continued around best practices in event delivery, from how we build support structures for our Bridging the Divide activity, to brainstorming fresh new challenges for Quickfire.
We also explored the benefits of knowledge-sharing within the Catalyst network. Fiona found real value in asking partners for event support – highlighting just how strong and collaborative the Catalyst community is.
Key Takeaways
AI is Everywhere: From Global Innovation Game visuals to Quickfire content, tools like ChatGPT, Groq, and CoPilot are becoming increasingly relevant and important in every day scenarios.
Global Collaboration: Exchanging best practices with our international partners helps raise the bar for us all. Check out more on Catalyst Global here.
New Resources: We have a new gallery of activity photos and video content for some of our activities and fresh challenge ideas for Quickfire.
Fiona and Oddie came back from Vienna buzzing with new ideas and even more grateful to be part of such a passionate global network. We’re ready to set the bar even higher for team building in the UK.
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