Keith is a gay dad. TEDster. A founder of SYPartners. A passionate participant in making a more equitable, inclusive, creative world. He’s also the host of This Human Moment. He’s trying to preserve vestiges of humanism in a world that convenes us virtually rather than in person.

No. 1
Start with art.

A bullet-point agenda is not nearly as enticing as a poem, music, photograph, or even a moment of silence. Clear your lens. Open up the synapses.

1. What is the place you want to put people’s souls? Hearts? So that their minds can be present?

2. Pick a piece of art. (Be adventuresome.)

3. Be gracious but unapologetic in your start.

No ideas? Email us.

No. 2
Have people reveal something meaningful.

A little bit of vulnerability, opens up a wide expanse of caring, consideration, and empathy. Looking at vulnerability as a strength—rather than a weakness—makes these gatherings more meaningful.

1. What would people care about knowing about each other?

2. Where might they find uncommon connections?

3. Where can you surface some friction that makes others want to understand each other better?

Ideas? Email us.

No. 3
Ask a more beautiful question.

I host a show called This Human Moment. On it, we’ve explored the power of asking a beautiful question. A question that opens people up—to imagination, possibility, enlivening. Here’s a list of 53 Beautiful questions to inspire you.

Here are your beautiful questions from our session together.

One beautiful question we answered together was: What song do you want to be remembered by—for how you lived your life? Here is your ‘funeral songs’ playlist.

No. 4
Get things down to the duo level.

The more you can get things to a workable size group, the better. Send people into working sessions, their own zoom room, their own chat conversations. Getting conversation down to a more human-to-human level ups the quality of each conversation.

How did it go? Email us.

No. 5
Create a joy moment.

About two-thirds through a meeting, it’s often helpful to create a joy moment—a moment that has some emotional content. That makes the meeting more memorable, but it also makes the content of the meeting something that people look back on fondly.

No. 6
Create something together.

We waste a lot of time in virtual meetings presenting, when that time is often better used co-creating. In a short span of time, you can create with the group a collected set of ideas, wisdoms, or understanding. This simple exercise we all did together—in less than two minutes—produced a definition of what makes for a great ‘host’ and what makes for a great ‘guest.’ If we were to continue working as a group together, this could become a common shared definition—and the basis of how we’d host and attend sessions.

No. 7
More love, less pain.

This one is obvious. But so few of us heed the principle. We tend to view virtual gatherings as ‘less than’ our physical world gatherings. With COVID-19 still strong, perhaps we switch our mindset to one of trying to do these gatherings with more love. What would happen if we did?