IntelliConferences

There are many intelligent, dedicated individuals across industry, government, and the community. What has been lacking are effective methods and forums to gather that intelligence into well-designed plans, policies, and investment strategies.

Typical conferences draw hundreds of people who listen passively to speakers and their PowerPoint presentations. Even when hallway and dinner conversations are lively, the energy fades by the time participants start their next workday.

OnTrackNorthAmerica’s IntelliConferences® bring together stakeholders, online and in person, for efficient discussions that harness collective intelligence, resulting in improved solutions, better-informed decisions, and effective action.

Traditional Processes ❌	IntelliConferences ✅
Fixed meeting schedules require participants to travel or go online at pre-determined times.	Asynchronous flexibility allows participants to read and respond on their own schedules, from wherever they are.
Inadequate facilitation results in chaotic banter or polite, unproductive conversation that leaves essential questions unanswered.	Call and response is initiated by the facilitation team, who language the dialogue agenda as questions, rather than phrases, so that problems are reframed as opportunities, leading to solutions, and progress.
Participants are expected to read what everyone has written, wasting valuable time.	The facilitation team summarizes each rounds’ input, saving participants time and stimulating enthusiastic participation and real results.
Attrition results from time-consuming, contentious processes.	Participation agreements that are reasonable and productive are signed by each participant at registration, with adherence tracked and cheered.
Squabbles and entrenched positions flare up when participants are forced to respond directly to previous posts.	Participants’ input is sent to the facilitation team, who catalog the group’s similar views and identify individual outlier perspectives that the group may need to address or align with, thus keeping the focus on the end goal.
Sharing some views can be risky if forced to do so publicly.	Anonymity is an option wherein participants can choose public or private on all or some of their input.

Efficient, Effective Engagement

IntelliConferences present a path-breaking approach to small- and large-group dialogue that greatly reduces participants’ time commitment while increasing the impact and satisfaction of the interaction.

We have developed an inquiry-based approach to dialogue and thinking called IntelliSynthesis®, which empowers participants to co-create innovative solutions and projects.

The Plan

IntelliConference Series are the heart of our work. In IntelliConferences stakeholders working with staff organizers capture and catalog all perspectives, conversation details, and thinking in transparent, continuously evolving records that become action plans.

We plan to initiate 3-to-12 month IntelliConference Series for each of the following VitalRail Dialogues. This allows us all to efficiently accumulate actionable knowledge, conduct robust discussions and work on illuminating and addressing problems and opportunities.

• Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern Merger Our first IntelliConference
• Rail Growth Capitalization
• Rail Regulatory Excellence
• Rail Business Culture
• Rail Management – Rail Labor
• Containerized International Freight
• Rail Carload System Revitalization
• Rail Energy Efficiency
• Freight Transportation Land Use
• Rail Technology Adoption
• Rail Trucking Coordination

We produce a synchronous zoom Kickoff event for stakeholders at the start of each IntelliConference Series.

Each Exploratory IntelliConference is guided by the VitalRail Facilitation Team. They apply our unique communication technique called IntelliSynthesis to elicit and expand each participant's thinking around pre-submitted questions.

Here we discuss the progress of our collaboration on a Dialogue. Also, to save time we teach stakeholders how to track summaries, digests, background detail, and next events on the discussions so that each of us can be up-to-date without having to devote too much time.

Collective action is one of the biggest hurdles in implementing collaborative, cross-sector industry plans. Our Action IntelliConferences bring it all home. The mission of OTNA's Initiatives such as VitalRail is to bring sustainable economic and environmental breakthrough to industries as quickly and safely as possible, not just share good ideas.