Architectural Innovation, Sensory Design, and Psychological Safety during an Experiential Workshop at IMEX America
Contact the team at Strategy Table Pathways to explore all or part of this impactful experience design
Let’s be bold and say:
“Traditional, passive conference presentations are broken. They create cognitive overload, stifle true collaboration, and result in near-zero long-term retention.”
At IMEX America 2026 during MPI’s Smart Monday, Strategy Table Pathways and Meeting Professionals International (MPI) set out to prove there is a better way. Together, we launched The Catalyst Lab, a multi-sensory, immersive workshop engineered to pull industry leaders out of their standard conference mindset and place them at the forefront of shaping their sectors.
Rather than asking attendees to sit and listen, The Catalyst Lab uses a “Productive Disruption” model rooted in neuroscience. By combining architectural innovation, sensory manipulation, and psychological safety, we lowered stress hormones, triggered dopamine-driven memory retention, and primed leaders to solve complex industry challenges in real time.
A Glimpse Inside the 4-Stage Experience:
Every phase of The Catalyst Lab is intentionally choreographed to guide the brain from distracted exhaustion to deep, collaborative focus.
Here is how each stage functions, and the strategic purpose behind it:
1. The Arrival: Breaking the Cognitive Pattern
The Experience: Disrupting the “autopilot” conference mindset the moment attendees step through a normal meeting space doorway into an extraordinary environment.
The Purpose: Attendees often walk into sessions carrying the mental clutter and the sensory fatigue of the trade show floor. By creating a physical threshold, a switchback drape tunnel, and an immediate atmospheric shift, we trigger a neurological “pattern interrupt.” This signals to the brain that the rules of a passive meeting no longer apply, awakening curiosity and presence before a single word is spoken.
2. The Circle: Priming Psychological Safety & Vulnerability
The Catalyst Experience: In this example, we used sensory experiences and a dynamic theatrical audio soundscape to strip away external noise and create a receptive neurological state for deep reflection.
The Purpose: High-level leaders rarely have the space to drop their armor and admit what they don’t know. By removing visual distractions and engaging the brain’s emotional centers through curated audio and spatial design, we lower cortisol (stress) levels and create a more balanced room. This rapid induction of psychological safety prepares participants to move past surface-level small talk and confront complex, uncomfortable leadership questions with genuine vulnerability.
3. The Workshop: Igniting Collaborative Action
The Experience: Moving into the light for high-energy sprints around dynamic Strategy Tables, using our proprietary overhead projection mapping to turn abstract ideas into concrete 3-day, 3-month, and 1-year action plans.
The Purpose: Deep reflection is wasted if you don’t immediately channel it into execution. The physical transition from the dim, introspective Circle into the bright, high-energy Workshop space creates a rapid cognitive shift that stimulates active learning. Instead of staring at static slides or messy flipcharts, the animated tabletop canvases guide teams through structured Creative Problem Solving (CPS) frameworks, bypassing “brainstorming fatigue” and forcing theoretical complaints to evolve into tangible, time-bound commitments.
4. The Lounge & Digital Ecosystem: Sustaining Momentum Beyond the Room
The Experience: Bridging physical tabletop breakthroughs with a persistent digital platform and dedicated decompression space to ensure accountability long after the event ends.
The Purpose: Even the most inspiring workshops fail if the insights die on a sticky note when attendees fly home. The Lounge gives participants a vital buffer zone to decompress, synthesize their breakthroughs, and network with intention before re-entering the chaos of the conference. Meanwhile, our continuous digital ecosystem, spanning pre-event conditioning, real-time smart-device capture during the sprints, and a permanent post-event repository, ensures every idea is documented, trackable, and ready to be transformed into post-event white papers and real organizational change.
🔒 Go Behind the Curtain: Exclusive Member-Only Breakdown
Want to know exactly how we engineered this experience and how you can apply these frameworks to your own organization or events?
Log in or join the Strategy Table Community (free) to unlock the full post and white paper, where we reveal:
- 🧠 The Neuroscience of Sensory Design: How we calibrated lighting, acoustics, and spatial flow to rapidly build psychological safety among strangers.
- 🛠️ The Facilitation Blueprint: A step-by-step look at the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) sprints and projection-mapped canvases used to eliminate “brainstorming fatigue.”
- 📊 Frictionless Data Capture: How we integrated pre-event conditioning and real-time smart-device capture to turn messy tabletop notes into post-event strategic white papers.
- 📈 Key Industry Insights from IMEX 2026: The actual breakthroughs, action plans, and pressing challenges uncovered by the leaders who participated.
👉 Log In to Read the Full Breakdown | ✨ Become a Community Member
Apply today to host your own Catalyst Lab at an event or in your office.
🔓 Unlock the Full Case Study & White Paper in the Members Section →
Testimonial
“It started out very reflective, relaxed, and soothing. The environment brought us out of the craziness of a big event and focused us inward… One of the ideas was to bring the contrarians into the conversation—having those dissenters that might actually create an alternative path or make our idea better by coming at it from a very different angle. That’s something I really want to add to the planning we do internally.”
— Claire Smith, Executive Director, Convention Centres of Canada
CLICK PLAY TO WATCH VIDEO TESTIMONIAL 👉
“My emotional journey over the last 70 minutes is one I would explain like a rainbow. There were some dark moments; there were some light moments… The single most impactful aha moment was having the best-case scenario alongside the worst-case scenario in a newspaper format… The direct impact I’m taking back and using right now is creating a newspaper or magazine format breaking down what the best-case scenario is and adding what the employee said to it.”
— Cheryl McJoy, Voyade Luxury Travel
“By the time we were done, you had people high-fiving and really excited about the product coming out of these sprints. It forces people to think outside the box… People still want to be in person. We have proven again and again people want to be in person, but they are asking more of what they want to gain from an in-person experience… When you experience it, you believe.”
— Hillary Miller, VP of Customer Experience, T3 Expo
“I think the single most impactful moment was knowing that my colleagues are experiencing a lot of the same challenges that I am. It’s always nice to feel not alone and really just to be able to work together to talk about the challenges and how we can potentially overcome them… My team talked a lot about working with our younger generations to let them always have a seat at the table and always speak first.”
— Shannon Jones, Destination South Meetings and Experiences
“It moved us through different rooms, and that experience activates different parts of how we participate… What stood out the most is the contrast from what we’re typically used to at an event, where we tend to sit and consume information… At the beginning, we were all trying to articulate the same ideas and concepts, but struggled to find a common language. When we found that common language, it unleashed our ability to work together, respond to the problems, and come up with a collective picture.”
— Yush Sztalkoper, Creator, Human Capacity Design
“The arc of the experience felt a lot like the hero’s journey. We started with our ground, our base, then we had an adventure, we did some challenges, and then it felt like we could cross back to that threshold of coming home again… I felt safe. I also felt inspired to take a risk. I felt like I was growing as a creative animal. It was really powerful to me, and I was constantly invited to play and get even braver about asserting myself.”
— Caitlin Krauss, Founder, Mindwise Interactive
Facilitation Architecture & Partner Ecosystem
Executing an experiential journey across multiple rooms requires careful operational coordination. The Catalyst Lab operated as a multi-partner ecosystem, with each organization supporting a specific component of the experience.
Arrival: Facilitation by Meeting Professionals International and Visit Fort Worth.
- Functional check-in registration process.
- Visit Fort Worth team welcomed attendees and gave them a challenge card to start their journey.
Room 1: Facilitation by Lisa Schulteis from Electra Lime Marketing.
- Established foundational challenge setting.
- Provided opt-in and opt-out before the experience
- Facilitated clarifying questions about the challenge and primed thinking for the second room
Room 2: Facilitation by Ryan Hill and Anthony Vade from Strategy Table Pathways
- Focused teams on a specific challenge
- Delivered three design sprints:
- Sprint 1. Understand Individual Mindset and Team Mindsets
- Sprint 2. Define overarching goals and key contributors required for success
- Sprint 3. Action planning and momentum-setting journey mapping for 3 days, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months.
Room 2: Coaching by Hillary Miller from T3 Expo, Corvin Dams from Vok Dams
Provided coaching support throughout all sprints to help participants collaborate and focus thinking within the frameworks provided
Room 2: Facilitation by Adam Fillary from PAN Global – Professional Association of Networking
Guidance in reflective conversations, goal setting, and networking focused on follow-up commitment to action ideas generated
Core Insights & Blueprint for Event Strategists
The Catalyst Lab at IMEX America Smart Monday 2026 showed that corporate meetings don’t have to settle for passive audiences and predictable slide decks. By grounding experiential design in adult learning theory, the neuroscience of stress and recovery, and Amy Edmondson’s psychological safety model, Strategy Table Pathways and MPI established a replicable framework for purposeful disruption.
When participants feel safe being vulnerable, have tools to collaborate directly, and space to decompress thoughtfully, live events become genuine engines of organizational change.
Contact the team at Strategy Table Pathways to explore all or part of this impactful experience design
Thank you to our partners and sponsors:
ACTIVATION SPONSORS
CONTRIBUTING PARTNERS
First Room Facilitation
Lisa Schulteis is an international keynote speaker, consultant, and founder of ElectraLime Marketing and YourEventMarketplace. Her work has been recognized with the 2025 Smart Speaker Award and the 2025 Smart Women in Meetings Award from Smart Meetings.
Drawing on her background in neuropsychology and behavioral science, Lisa created The Neuroscience of Adoption, a framework that explores why people adopt or resist new ideas, technologies, and ways of working. Her work bridges neuroscience, human behavior, and business strategy to help leaders reduce uncertainty, build confidence, and create the conditions where innovation is more likely to succeed.
A sought-after international keynote speaker, consultant, and event strategist, Lisa works with organizations navigating AI, technology adoption, sustainability initiatives, organizational change, leadership, and customer experience. Through keynotes, workshops, consulting, and strategic event leadership, she helps organizations understand the human side of change and turn innovation into meaningful, lasting adoption.
Since founding ElectraLime Marketing in 2009, Lisa has helped organizations grow, innovate, and navigate change, partnering with Fortune 500 companies, associations, destinations, and organizations around the world. Today, she draws on that entrepreneurial experience to help leaders understand why great ideas succeed, stall, or fail, and what they can do to create the conditions where adoption becomes more likely.
Second Room Facilitation
Anthony Vade and Ryan Hill are the visionary Co-Founders of Strategy Table, an organization dedicated to empowering teams and transforming business operations through collaborative culture building. Anthony, serving as Chief Innovation Officer, brings nearly 30 years of expertise in experience design and creating meaningful stakeholder connections. He is renowned for his abundant, innovative thinking and ability to foster shared trust. Ryan, as Chief Operations Officer, offers a dynamic background spanning military service and entrepreneurship. He seamlessly blends military precision with entrepreneurial creativity, establishing himself as a thought leader at the intersection of strategy and leadership.
Together, they guide organizations through complex change, replacing traditional consulting mandates with structured methods and psychological safety. By championing immersive collaboration and continuous improvement, Anthony and Ryan equip businesses to navigate disruption, unlock their full potential, and achieve measurable, lasting results in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
Third Room Facilitation
Adam Fillary is an association founder, entrepreneur, and renowned “super connector” with over 30 years of business and event experience. As the founder and Executive Managing Director of the Professional Association of Networking (PAN), he pioneers innovative, human-centric techniques to facilitate high-value global connections.
Known for his “give before you take” philosophy, Adam emphasizes quality over quantity, championing authentic relationship building in an increasingly digital world. His visionary leadership at PAN focuses on elevating professional networking standards, expanding the organization’s reach, and advocating for the in-person validation of social capital.
A frequent speaker on networking strategy, Adam leverages his vast, cross-industry network to unite thought leaders and decision-makers. Ultimately, his relentless energy and commitment to intentional, inclusive networking empower PAN members to access new opportunities, build trust, and thrive in a rapidly evolving professional landscape.