Follow up while the session is still warm

What arrives in the days after decides whether anything actually changes.

The window in which a session can turn into action is short. People leave with intent, the intent is immediately buried under the work they postponed to attend, and within a week the session is a pleasant memory with no consequence. Follow up is what converts attention into effect, and it works best when it is prepared before the session rather than improvised afterwards in the flat exhaustion that follows going live.

Keep it small and specific. One message, soon, with the recording or transcript, the answers to the questions that could not be handled live, the one thing you are asking people to do, and the date of whatever comes next. Resist the urge to attach everything ever written on the subject, because a long package is easier to defer than a short one. If the session promised something, the follow up is where the promise is kept, and failing there does more damage than any live stumble.

Follow up is also where the next session is designed. The questions nobody asked aloud arrive here. The confusions surface here. The people who could not attend identify themselves here. Collected honestly across a series, this becomes the most reliable source of material available, far better than guessing what an audience needs from a distance.