The structure of the event is not secret
but this is all you’ll get
1
DAY ONE: ON-BOARDING
The first day of the College is dedicated to bringing everyone into the magic circle. Intro to the people, the places and the philosophy.2
DAY TWO: CLASSES
The second day is focused on classes taught by our visiting Professors; inspiring indviduals from various industries and worlds.3
DAY THREE: CLASSES
The third day follows a similar pattern to Day Two, but by now the castle feels like home, and more co-creation takes place.4
DAY FOUR: WHITE SPACE
The fourth day is completely open - with ample room for both creativity, conversation, and a charming amount of color & chaos.5
DAY FIVE: OFF-BOARDING
The last day of the College means finales, farewells, and future plans, with plenty of room for hugs, hopes and happy smiles.But what does that
mean in practice?
Here are some words about one of the aspects of the College. The rest you’ll have to come to the castle to experience!
Six deep dive workshops run by masters of their craft,who normally do what they’re doing here at very,
very different prices.
Facilitation by experienced professionals,who are used to working with diverse groups of people
in a variety of settings around the world.
Curated and structured networking on a level that normallyjust isn’t done, in an atmosphere, where there are
no status dividers, and everybody shows up as a person.
First-hand experience with cutting edge experience design,behaviour design, and culture design, done
by an award-winning team hailing from all over the globe.
And the best part? None of these are things we necessarily say about the College, but these are all things participants have said about it – we’re just quoting them shamelessly!
Classes at the College are not lectures or presentations. They are designed learning experiences led by experts from different fields, and they are mix of the creative, the commercial, the embodied, and the unexpected.
You might find yourself learning how to sing with your soul, design rituals for work and life, or become a clown for 90 min as a way of examining vulnerability, status, and failure. You could learn an instantly applicable method for visually ordering thoughts, gain a deeper understanding of the possibilities of transitional spaces, or perhaps be confronted with your own assumptions through abstract art.
The subject matter differs, but the overarching purpose of the classes does not; to give participants shared language they didn’t have, shared experiences that lead to reflection, and shared tools for both the grand and the granular.
Classes are done in smaller groups (called Houses), and each class is accompanied by a reflection session – allowing both mild and strong experiences to be processed, and for transfer to happen by design instead of by delayed accident.
That transfer is at the center of the entire College. Because while learning how to be present from a 14th generation Japanese Samurai is exciting in itself, the real value comes in the discussions about how to apply that learning to daily lives and business realities – and this goes for all of our classes, whether they seem flighty and exotic or grounded and practical.
For traditional conferences, the thing that is nearly always mentioned as being the most valuable is “meeting the people”, and often, the thing that is the least designed and with little time set aside for it, is “meeting the people”.
That is why, at the College, we have an entire day set aside for exactly that. Our fourth day is what we call a “whitespace day”. This is a day without formal programme, but with a structure in place so that co-creation is smooth and effortless. This means that while the fourth day is a day of conversations about everything from the profound to the professional (with a dash of the playful thrown in!), it’s also a day where College participants bring their own magic to decentralised stages.
On Day 4 at the College, you might find a workshop about knife fighting happening next door to an interactive workshop on pricing, and a 1-on-1 concert could take place in the tower, while a group is picking the brains of someone who is an expert on theme park design in the dungeon.
In short, the fourth day at the College is the day every conference dreams it had, but which tends to be discarded due because there’s too much that needs to be squeezed into the available space and time.
And that… that is where the magic truly happens.
The College is a distinct space with its own collection of distinct spaces, and a good example of these is the Extraordinary Maker Space.
It is a workshop that is open throughout the College, and it plays host to tools such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and crafting gadgets made by the team manning it. And who are they? Creative producers, dream builders, and mad inventors, with experience in turning ideas into physical things, and with time and patience for even the silliest of questions.
Its purpose is simple: to move ideas out of people’s heads and into the physical world. Participants can rapidly prototype objects, build gifts, test concepts, create artefacts for sessions, or simply play with making. For many professionals, this is a useful shift: from talking about ideas to making something tangible.