About The Octagon

What is The Octagon?

whatistheoctagonThe Octagon is a platform aimed at cataloging insightful conversations between people involved in business or running high impact projects. Each of these conversations happens with eight people who have been preselected and brought together into a room. The preselection criteria of the eight octagon guests are based either on an area of expertise or simply their ability to share opinions on a particular subject matter. These conversations are first held within closed rooms and then shared with the public for further discussions.

The Greek words that the OCTAGON is derived from (Octa Gonia meaning eight angles) symbolize what the platform is. This unrehearsed intellectual adventure has its significance neither in winning nor in losing, but in wagering. The aim of this platform is to raise the general level of thinking and find some sort of balance by bringing diverse thoughts to the table. We believe that conversations are the very basis of education and the most readily-available, pervasive, and useful way to stimulate one’s mind and continue learning and growing.


Why the Octagon?

whytheoctagon

The idea for this platform came from understanding that every day, high-value conversations occur between closed groups of people around the country and considering how impactful these conversations would be if shared with a larger audience who have been seeking clarity on such topics.

With the Octagon, simple conversations can become a springboard to creating great businesses, business strategy or efficient processes. The approach of this platform focuses on discussions where each participant active or passive seeks to look for the truth in what others are saying and linking it to their own understandings. We believe that it is this thinking that will assist in bringing out the true solutions to the peculiar challenges we face in businesses, projects, and society at large.

 





How it works

howitworks

Here is how the simple 5 step process works;
A topic is selected: The Octagon team are continuously collating discussion topics with the capability of generating high-value conversations. The final topics/subject matters selected to be deliberated on within the rooms are chosen after a series of surveys are carried out.

Guests are chosen: The topics form the grounds for which guests are chosen on the octagon. It is imperative that the people chosen have the ability to openly articulate their views/opinions on the subject. This can be either as a result of the fact that they have had years of experience or are key drivers in that industry.

Guests are invited: Selected guests are not told who they will be meeting up with in the discussion room. They are invited to either a chat room or physical location. The timing for the meet up will be agreed to by all parties. Guests will be given an idea about the topic to be discussed in the form of a statement.

The Chat: For discussions that occur in the octagon chatroom via WhatsApp, guests will be added 30 minutes ahead of meet up time and the conversation will proceed for 1 hour after which all members will be removed from the room. The topic will be introduced by the octagon and conversation steered in some cases. For discussions at the octagon studio, guests will be asked to be seated 30 minutes ahead of time and then the recorded conversation will proceed for an hour.

Sharing the chat: Transcripts, podcasts or video clips from the chatroom will then be shared on www.octagon.com.ng as the public is invited to get enlightened by it and further the discussion with questions or contributions.


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