A new one on me: the town-hall/brown-bag hybrid

Dateline, Calgary.

Coming to you from RonCon 2010, where I’m talking executive communication and employee communication. During my half-day rap yesterday on speechwriting and exec comms, an audience member said her CEO holds meetings that are neither big scary town halls nor super-intimate “chats with the boss.”

He invites 15 people to a lunch discussion and gives each one of them a chance (and thus, no doubt, an obligation) to ask a question.

Struck me as having a offering reach than the typical brown-bag lunch, but more intimacy and universal satisfaction than a town hall. And the communicator agreed: Once they cut the number of employee participants from the original 20 to 15, the format worked well.

Interested to hear if you’ve tried something similar.