On Inspire and Echo Chambers

I tried to add some commentary when sharing this fantastic article on the legal innovation 'echo chamber' from Joe Borstein. I failed miserably. When I looked up from my keyboard, I was over the character limit by a healthy four figures. (at least I was on brand)

I was sitting around with some friends the other night. They have been hosting a local, legal innovation roundtable for years. They were discussing ways to reinvigorate the event. As is my wont, I blurted out apropos of seemingly nothing, “I would be a terrible conference organizer.”

Their discussion had me ruminating on the best event I’d been to in recent memory: Inspire Legal. The event itself was fantastic. But the subsequent dialogue on social media—much of it led by people who weren’t there—got strange in patches.

Joe and Christian Lang did something new. While I may never be able to say “unpanel” without a wry smirk, the conference design was fresh and invigorating. Indeed, the yellow card/red card unpanel moderated by Bill Henderson may have had the most engaging setup I’ve encountered at any conference, ever. The day moved briskly with a relentless emphasis on real conversations and focused, collaborative problem solving.

The format, as innovative as it was, paled in comparison to the people. There was an express premium on all manner of diversity. I happily ended up in many structured conversations I rarely have with people I’d never met (or had only encountered briefly in passing). In my experience, it was the antithesis of an echo chamber—if that term is to continue to have any meeting.

Which brings me to my original exclamation: I would make a terrible conference organizer. I would likely invite all the usual suspects. Why? Because I am one. They are who I know best. We are the usual suspects for a reason. We enjoy each other’s company. We learn from one another. There are worse things than catching up with fellow travelers. It’s not bad; it is just limiting. The same people talking in the same way about the same topics gets old. Which is why Christian and Joe decided to put in the hard work to make Inspire new and different. They succeeded.

Inspire wasn’t the stale conference I would have put on. It was so much better. Yet it elicited the same reaction from the peanut gallery. It is almost as if there is a small, insular community that communicates using a limited number of prefabricated tropes and has developed an immunity to information that does not fit their narrow frame. Someone should come up with a term for that dynamic.