The Aspen Institute International Partners Team hosted their very first SparkLab from 11-13 June 2025. A dynamic communications workshop bringing together representatives from all the Aspen partner institutes. Held in Paris, France, the 3 day workshop was an invigorating, thought provoking experience- making us reflect on the work we are doing, how better to reach our audience and most importantly, how to learn from our network partners. From Socratic dialogues, to network building activities, the SparkLab workshop truly captured the essence of what the Aspen model stands for and lay the groundwork for focused learning and collaborative opportunities on how best to communicate that. The Ananta Aspen Centre was represented by Aditi Mehra, find below a brief summary of her experience.
11th June, 2025. It was a hot day in Paris as I walked over to the beautiful Aspen Institute France office. A warm fresh croissant and an espresso in hand, I could hardly contain my excitement as one after the other, the participants started to walk in. As everyone helped themselves to the baked goods and caffeine, I paused for a second and soaked in the fact that here we were, a room full of 20 odd people, all meeting for the first time, working towards the same goals, but under completely different circumstances and regions. As I said in my remarks at some point during the day, we were all in the same boat, floating different waters. Conversations were flowing as we gathered around and took our seats to officially mark the workshop open. Starting off with introductions from the International Partners Team, Valarie Lombard, Executive Director, Aspen France and Clare Muñana, Chair, International Committee, The Aspen Institute.
I have to admit, I was always curious about what role my most dreaded class in undergrad, western political thought, could play in the shaping of leaders today. I was even more curious when a group of communications professionals were asked to read Plato’s The Republic and a Philosophical Charter by J. E. Slater, President The Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies in 1972. Tommy Loper, Vice President Enterprise Development, Aspen Institute moderated what would truly be the most invigorating 3 hours of my life, not just intellectually, but emotionally as well. It was fascinating how we were discussing what we derive from these sentences that I had only ever studied literally and never figurately. How human thought could be so different based on circumstances, but yet how human emotion could be so similar despite those same varied circumstances. There was a lesson in there for shaping our communications strategies (of what to communicate) personalisation = relatability = a sense of trust and feeling connected.
Leading us into the next workshop, of how best to communicate it. Lead by Savannah Lane, Associate Director, International Partners, Aspen Institute. The session was titled Power, Purpose, and the Words We Choose. All the partners submitted a list of 3 words we most use in our communications. A map of these words appeared on the screen, leadership, dialogue and empower were the top 3 words. We then broke up into groups of 4 and discussed which words on the screen worked for our messaging and which ones did not. For example- Most participants were struggling with the use of the word ‘transformative’ as they feared the messaging of it specially for partners who would translate it into their languages. My suggestion here was to supplement it with ‘growth’ instead. Perhaps my most valuable contribution as all participants were in instant agreement that ‘growth’ should be a word we all use in our messaging more prominently.
For the Peer to Peer Advising session moderated by John Peabody, Director, Content Strategy, Aspen Institute. We were asked to think of the greatest challenges we face as communicators of the work we do. I brought up the two challenges that are always on my mind-
The first one and this turned out to be a common challenge, how to retain the essence of messaging when most of our work is closed door and Chatham house, which ironically is what sets our work apart. But context is key when it comes to effective communication, so how do we tell a story through essentially a redacted brief?
Secondly, and this one really got everyone thinking- is the audience that is consuming our content currently, the same as our target audience?
Lorelle Atkinson, Vice President for Communications and Marketing, Aspen Institute held a session on the proverbial bane of every communications partner in the room, our websites! She took us through the newly launched Aspen Institute website, 2 years in the making, the revamped site prominently displays the international partners and has sections for regular updates of all our work across the globe. Discussions lead to the sheer importance of neat and updated websites as a pillar for clear communication of what we do.
Amongst all the sessions and seminars, Weaving it Together: Building Aspen Institute’s interconnected global community of leaders by Tommy Loper, was perhaps the standout in terms of team building and really learning about the diversity of programs and work that we do across the board.
It’s hard to fully summarise the takeaways from this experience. There are of course many tips and tricks we all shared with each other, from customising content for each platform to picking and prioritising platforms. How best to optimize LinkedIN to how we can all support each other with cross posting, the list goes on.
The key takeaway we all agreed at the end of it, was the relatability and connectivity we as the communications representatives of each partner institute felt. Someone to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off of. A better understanding of each other’s work and seeing, truly seeing the endless scope for collaboration between the institutes. Reiterating one of the core pillars of what we do- human connection and network.
I am grateful and beyond for having had this opportunity of not just professional, but also personal ‘growth’.
